


And Slowly, So it Goes

by Ashesofthefirststar



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Altean Alchemy, Awkward Family Dinners, Bisexual Lance (Voltron), Falling In Love, Family Dynamics, Friends to Lovers, Gay Keith (Voltron), Grief/Mourning, Humor, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Lance is too, Lance joins the Blade, M/M, Mutual Pining, Pining Keith (Voltron), Pining Lance (Voltron), Post Season 8, Post-Canon, but give him time, keith is pining, past allurance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-14
Updated: 2019-01-14
Packaged: 2019-10-10 07:49:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,941
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17421857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ashesofthefirststar/pseuds/Ashesofthefirststar
Summary: Keith snorts, swiping away the holoscreen. “It’s one lady,” he says as he picks up the first crate. “And somehow I don’t think it’s your farmers tan that's keeping you.”“You’ve been checking out my farmers tan, Keithy boy?”Keith doesn’t give Lance the satisfaction he wants. “You’re too nice, is what it is.”“Says the guy who started his own humanitarian organization.”As soon as Keith turns, there’s a crate pushing against Lance’s chest. Unprepared, he grapples to find a grip, but Keith’s hold is steady. When Lance finally finds purchase, there's a hand brushing against his own.“I didn’t say it was a bad thing, Lance.”Or: Lance joins the Blade of Marmora, but what started off as a way to better honor Allura’s memory turns into a lesson on what it means to trust himself again.





	1. Chapter 1

 

 

In front of Lance, an elderly women worries over a display of rainbow chard.

 She’ll pick one up, turn it to inspect all its angles, and then, with slow moving arthritic fingers, graze each leaf in search for soft spots.

 It takes all that’s good in Lance to not rip the chard from her withered hands and start packing up for the day. But being charming and indulgent to little old ladies is sorta his thing, hence why Mrs. Beatrice spends the last thirty minutes left of the farmers market at his stand and no one else's. She knows Lance won’t rush her away.

 Usually, he wouldn’t mind. He doesn’t have much better to do these days anyway, but it’s drop off day, and being the only pilot in his co-op, he has to haul the left over crops to the other side of the universe.

 To Altea.  

 Something about drop off day always makes him antsy. His muscles tighten and every sound hits against the base of his neck. He swings his arms, shuffles his feet, rearranges the cauliflower just for the sake of doing something. It’s anticipation, he knows. What he doesn’t know it why he's so eager.

 Being on Altea has never made him particularly happy. Even after the war, when he spent so much time there, in hindsight, it felt more like somewhere he had to be, not somewhere he genuinely enjoyed being.

 Lance likes thinking of her, doesn’t think he’ll ever stop thinking of her, but something about being on Altea, it’s _too much_ her.

 “You’re not very chatty today.”

 Lance’s attention snaps back to Mrs. Beatrice, who’s studying him with one drawn on eyebrow raised. His smile comes back easily, knee jerk and reflexive.

 “Sorry Mrs. B. Just got a lot on my mind today.”

 She turns soft around the eyes, offering Lance a thin-lipped smile as she gives the chard in her hand a little shake, as if to say _this is the one!_ After putting it in her canvas bag, she pulls a loose dollar bill from a change purse.

 “It’s okay to have off days, son. We can’t choose how the memories will hit us.” She hands the dollar to Lance, and with a bashful tilt of the head asks, “And one of those flower wreaths please? You know how my grandson loves them.”

 Lance’s eyes drift up to where several juniberry flower crowns are perched on a hook, and all at once, he’s reminded of why he likes Mrs. Beatrice, or more so, why she likes him.

 He has a reputation around the farmers market. He knows what people say about him. Hears the gossip of the regulars who never learned quite how to whisper.

  _“Wasn’t that boy a paladin of Voltron? The one who lost his...you know..."_

  _"I’ve heard he hasn’t dated since.."_

  _“That poor boy. How… sad...”_

 And they don’t mean ‘I just watched a movie where a dog died’ sad. They mean pathetic sad. It doesn’t bother Lance. They don’t know. They weren’t there. They don’t get it.

 But Mrs. Beatrice does. A recent widow herself, she has an appreciation for the way Lance dedicates himself to spreading Allura’s memory and message.

 And okay, sometimes it does worry Lance that this is what people see when they look at him. A perpetually mourning widower so lonely after the death of their significant other that they spend thirty minutes mulling through a stack of rainbow chard at the expense of nice young farm hands. But mostly, he feels understood. While Mrs. Beatrice mulls, they’ll exchange stories. Him about Allura. Her about her wife, Scarlett. And it’s nice, talking to her without fear of judgement or pity.

 But Mrs. Beatrice has so many stories. She’ll go on and on. _This one time me and Scarlett went skinny dipping and a snake bit her in the bum. This one time I tried to cook General Tso's chicken and it led to an overnight stay in the emergency room._ And as she does, Lance will judge himself. Between the day they started dating and the day Scarlett died, so much life was lived. Their was so much to be mourned. Fifty two years to be exact, and it made Lance’s pain seem almost petty in comparison.

 It also helps him understand why he didn’t like being on Altea. When he was there, he couldn’t stop himself from thinking about the life she should’ve had. The life they could’ve had together. She would’ve ruled Altea and Lance would’ve went with her to become- what are they called? Her consort or whatever. They would’ve slowed down. Taken it all in. Taken each other in. They would’ve gotten to enjoy each other without war looming over every moment they shared. They would’ve made their own skinny dipping, late night emergency room stories.

 Or maybe they wouldn’t have.

 And that’s sorta the point. Lance doesn’t get to know. Lance will never know.

 Lance removes a flower crown from its hook. “Your grandson really likes these, huh? I can always give you some seeds to take home for him,” he offers, for appearance sake. They both know she doesn’t really get them for her grandson.

 She waves him off with a flick of the wrist. “It wouldn’t be quite the same.”

 Lance hands her the wreath and she departs with a smile. He watches her back for just a moment, takes that second the gather himself before all that anxious energy returns to him, carrying through the process of loading up his truck.

 He tries to hurry. He’s late as it is, something Keith will have no problem pointing out. Lance thinks about that glare he'll most definitely be getting, the one so specific to Keith it could be trademarked. With a small smile, Lance places the last box of produce in the bed of his truck. Keith would be there.

 Maybe going to Altea won't be all bad.

 

**xXx**

 

Between docking at the Garrison and entering the Teludav, Lance receives two text from Rachel reminding him to be home for dinner that night.

 Lance knows his sister as well as you can expect to know someone you spent nine months sharing a womb with, and therefore, knows that two seemingly innocent reminder texts are not so innocent. Rachel’s up to something, and whatever that something is, Lance knows he isn’t going to like it. But as his ship is submerged by Altea’s cerulean sky, whatever suspicion he feels is left behind in the Teludav.

 Like always, Altea is storybook bright. The colors are too saturated and the view too scenic to seem like anything but a dreamscape. A castle glitters in the distance, fields of pink touch the skies blue horizon, melting saccharine like cotton candy. Altea, with all of it’s very real and very palpable beauty, has always been an untouchable fantasy to Lance.

 As he lands, a familiar ache rouses in his gut, listless and heavy like a stone stirring at the bottom of a wind churned river. For all the ways Lance tries not to think of Altea, it’s hard to believe that three years ago he thought this was where he belonged. He had done all he was capable of to help Altea settle into its renewed existence, and if not for Coran, he probably would have never left.

  _The burdens of Altea are not yours_ , he had said. _Allura sacrificed what she wanted most for universal peace, the family she found in you and the other paladins. If you want to honor her memory, be with your family, my boy, and live in peace._

 And that’s what he’s done. He eats family dinners and makes flower crowns for the kids at the market and tells anyone who’s willing to listen about the princess who saved the stars. He spreads Allura's message through example. Lives it. Sometimes it’s a dull life, but it’s also the life Allura would want for him. And when he comes back to Altea, he tries not to envision a life where he had a reason to stay.    

 His eyes flicker to an orange glowing screen that projects the ship's rear view, and there's Keith. His arms folded and leaning back on one foot, looking oh so casual as if he just happened to not see Lance’s cargo ship land in front of him. Lance smiles.

 Yep, that’s right. A cargo ship.

 When Lance had stepped onto Altea for their first ever scheduled drop off over a year ago, after struggling to land the clunky and outdated Garrison USAC Arcatia (the same model they still use for student demonstrations) Keith had greeted him with a smirk and a _Hey, cargo pilot_. Lance replied by flipping him the bird with a toothy grin.

 It’s funny how something that years prior would have infuriated Lance had made him feel so normal.

 With a few clicks, the back hatch is lifting and a ramp slides from the opening. When Lance gets to the rear of the cargo ship, Keith is waiting for him.

 “Keith! My man,” Lance stops a few feet short of Keith. He thinks of hugging him, but like always, reconsiders. They never have done that before, and it be weird at this point, right?

 Right.

 “You're late. Again.”

 And there it is. That infamous Kogane stare down.

 He stands back as Keith presses a button on his gauntlet. A lazer fans from wall to wall, scanning the entire load. A holoscreen materializes from his wrist, displaying produce numbers and the corresponding sectors they’ll be distributed. Lance notes, not for the first time, the way that his eyes drag. The years have softened Keith, even his glare is less piercing.

 Stabilizing a fallen empire and managing a humanitarian organization will do that to a person, Lance supposes, but it’s good. Keith will always be made up of calluses and sharp edges, but he has soft spots too. Always has. They are just easier to find these days.

 Lance likes that though, because that means Keith’s happy. The smiles more, laughs louder kind of happy that spills into everything he does and every interaction he has. 

 “Cut me some slack, I was helping a little old lady pick out the perfect rainbow chard.”

 Keith glances up from the holoscreen, the beginnings of a smile pull at his lips, “Mrs. Beatrice?”

 “What can I say? I’m in high demand with the ladies,” Lance rest his chin in the space between his thumb and pointer finger, giving a showy grin. “It’s the good looks.”

 Keith snorts, swiping away the holoscreen. “It’s one lady,” he says as he picks up the first crate. “And somehow I don’t think it’s your farmers tan that's keeping you.”

 “You’ve been checking out my farmers tan, Keithy boy?”

 Keith doesn’t give Lance the satisfaction he wants. “You’re too nice, is what it is.”

 “Says the guy who started his own humanitarian organization.”

 As soon as Keith turns, there’s a crate pushing against Lance’s chest. Unprepared, he grapples to find a grip, but Keith’s hold is steady. When Lance finally finds purchase, there's a hand brushing against his own.

 “I didn’t say it was a bad thing, Lance.”

 Keith smiles at him with his whole face, eye’s and all, and when he turns away to pick up a crate, all Lance can think is _soft_.

 They start the process of transferring the haul from Lance's ship to Keith's. It takes longer than it should. They make sure of that. With slow, dragging paces and frequent breaks, they’re nearly three hours in when they pick up the last two boxes.

 Lance's cheeks hurt from smiling, and as they close Keith's hatch for the day, he remembers where they are. That happens when him and Keith link up, Lance gets lost in it. In the banter, the normalcy.

 It's weird to admit, but Keith has definitely become Lance's best friend these last few years. He's not sure if the feelings are mutual. Hell, half the time he expects Keith not to be here when he lands. Doesn't know how he got so close to Keith Kogane, ace pilot and certified space ninja, of all people.

 But what he does know is that Keith could pick any of the Blade’s hundreds of members to be here, but chooses to come himself every time.

 And that means something, right?

 “Listen, the Blade is starting a new initiative,” Keith says as he closes the hatch of his ship. He turns to Lance, excitement brightening his eyes. “We’re finally doing it, Lance. We’re going to help these planets become self sufficient.”

 He sounds a bit winded, like the news is a breath he couldn’t bare to hold any longer, and for a moment, Lance is two years younger, standing on one of Altea’s highest peaks.

 Every three months, team Voltron would gather on Altea for dinner. A tradition that none of them would think to miss. One time Pidge had fallen off a ladder in her lab after doing a system check with Matt, but still made it to the dinner with her arm wrapped in a cast that they all signed.

 This had been one of those times, at a dinner two years ago. Keith had been quiet all night, even for him, and after they were done eating, Lance had found him pensively sitting on one of the cliffs near the castle watching Altea's technicolor sunset. The scene felt hauntingly familiar, only this time when Lance found Keith it was to listen to him. Keith told him that when he had first turned the Blade into a humanitarian organization there were plenty of planets who had been on the fringes of the war, developed enough to push back against the Galras colonization in as many ways as possible.

 For them, a few crates of food, a couple of helpful hands, and they were on their way. But for many less developed planets, the Galra regime was more invasive than that. They stole more than freedom, they stole history. They burned books. Outlawed languages. Whole methods of agriculture and infrastructure were erased. So when they were liberated from the work camps, they were lost. They had been dependent on their captors. The Galra made sure of that.

 When Keith said, _I have to fix this. I have to_ , it had been the first time Lance had looked at the Altean sunset and ached for someone other than Allura.

  _You will, and you won’t do it alone_ , Lance had said, and after that, he started the co-op with a dozen or so other farmers, and Earth became one of the Blades biggest produce distributors. It wasn’t perfect, but if Lance was being honest, he had wanted to contribute for a while, especially knowing all that the other paladins did, but it was seeing Keith so selflessly struggle to fix what he hadn't even broken that gave him the nerve to do it. What kind of right hand man would he be otherwise?

 “Keith, that’s awesome, man! This is everything you’ve been working for.”

 “I know,” Keith says, “I wasn’t sure if the alliance was going to fund us once they saw how much we were asking for.”

 Lance leans against the ship and regards Keith with an impressed whistle. “Out of those penny pinchers? What you have to offer them?”

 “Nothing,” Keith smirks. “I just told them that if they didn’t fund us, I’d have no choice but to put an embargo on all Galran goods for the planets represented in the alliance.”

 “You can do that?!”

 “No, but the alliance doesn’t know that.”   

 Lance stares unblinking, and then-

 “Holy shit,” he wheezes. “Keith, buddy, I thought you said politics weren't for you.”

 “Cause they aren't!”

 “Yeah, yeah. Sure.” Lance says flippantly, slinging an arm around over Keith's shoulder. “Today it's political coercion. Tomorrow you'll be getting your mullet fitted for a crown. Your mom must be so proud.”

 Keith rolls his eyes, but doesn't push Lance away. “It worked, didn't it?”

 They walk to Lance's craft linked together as Lance rambles about going out for celebratory drinks.

 When they get there, Keith unwinds himself, takes a step back, and says, “I'm putting together teams of specialists and dispatching them to units on all Level E planets within this sector. If it goes well, more sectors will follow.”

 Keith stands noticeably straighter, his chin leveling, serious like, and Lance can’t help but to follow suit.

 “I want you on my team Lance.”

 “Uh...say that one more time.”

 “My team still needs someone who specializes in agriculture,” he says steadily. “I want that to be you.”

 Lance staggers, his mouth grappling for words, because Keith just- he didn’t really-

 “Okay, just one more time. I don't think I heard y-”

 “ _Lance_.”

 “You’re serious?”

 “I wouldn’t ask as a joke.”

 Lance knows that, but he’s having a hard time grasping the offer. Doesn’t even know why Keith would ask. Beneath his shock, there's a bit of guilt too. Somehow, someway, he'd given Keith the wrong impression of himself, and made him believe that Lance was something he's not.

 “It won’t be like Voltron. Everyone gets a two week leave in between deployments,” Keith explains, and he sounds like Shiro in how he's presenting it. “You’ll still be able to see your family.”

 And oh God, he really is serious.

 “I-Keith I-” Lance rubs the back of his neck, inhales through the suddenes off all this. “I sell rainbow chard to little old ladies. Occasionally a cantaloupe or two. This is huge.”

 “We both know you do more than that. It was you that helped Altea develop a whole new agricultural system and it was you that figured out what was causing the Shatarie’s plants to wilt.”

 “I learned way more from Altea than they did from me, and the Shatarie thing? That was mostly luck. A one off.” Lance wraps his arms around himself and looks aways from Keith. “I’m a local farmer, Keith. I don’t have the skills to help these people the way they need to be helped. You're better off asking someone else.”

 There’s a beat of silence, and Lance figures Keith's finally came to his senses, but then-

 “That's bullshit.”  

 And Keith’s crass certainty reels Lance back in. He looks near battle ready, as if Lance’s presence on this mission is something he’d pick up a sword to fight for. It’s a familiar fierceness that never fails to make Lance feel hot behind the ears.

 “You know what your capable of, Lance. Why don’t you trust yourself?”   

 Lance bites down the urge to contradict him. He knows Keith would argue the point no matter what he says, and honestly, Lance doesn't want to disappoint him. He doesn't want to tell Keith that he’s not worth all the credit and trust that he’s given him, not with this.

 He's about to outright say no, just like he'd say no if someone asked him to come cook at an upscale restaurant or join a professional basketball team, or be a part of any other job he’s unqualified for, but then-

 “I'm scared,” Keith says abruptly and with such an earnesty that all Lance can do is stare silently and anticipate what he says next. “So many lives are counting on me to get this right, and I know I'm not in it alone. I have my unit, and mom, and Kolivan, but I trust myself more when I have you at my back. You always come through, Lance.”

 And he stares at him like he's the only person in the galaxy. Like it's just the two of them. It reminds Lance of when they were on Thayserix, Keith emerging from the gas to ask for his help. Lance's heart clenches.

 “Say no if you have to,” Keith says, eyes fierce. “But don't do it because you think you aren't capable enough.”

 Lance will never fully understand the effect Keith has on him, because when he looks at Lance like that, with an expectancy he wants nothing more than to live up too, he almost says yes.

 He wants to be the person Keith so fervently believes that he is, and maybe he can.

 Maybe Keith sees something that Lance hasn't yet.

 “You're not an easy guy to say no to. You know that, Kogane?”

 His smile is an edge too soft to be considered a smirk, but Lance knows him well enough to see the smugness curling at his lips.

 “Think about it,” he says. “You can tell me next week.”

 “Next week?”

 “At the dinner.”

 “Oh, yeah.”

 “You’re coming, right?”

 Lance waves him off with one hand and opens  the latch to his ship with the other. “Wouldn’t miss it.”

 “Good.” Keith perks a brow. “You wouldn’t want to make Hunk cry.”

 Lance gasps, “I would never do that to Hunk!”

  
Keith’s definitely smirking now. “Go home, Lance.”

 “Yeah, I’m going.” Once inside the cargo ship, Lance thumbs a panel on the adjacent wall. He watches from the ledge as the ramps starts to retract. “Have fun building schools and kissing babies or whatever you guys do.”

 Keith’s eyes widen, and he’s quick to reach into his gater pack. The mechanical door is starting to slide down now, but before it reaches Lance’s line of sight, Keith tosses him whatever he pulled from his pack and says “Add this to your museum.”

 Lance stands there, arm out and hand clenched as he watches Keith disappear. He waits until the doors block off Keith completely before bringing his arm down and unwrapping his fingers to reveal a bracelet. It’s made up of tiny bead like charms, chard and wooden in texture. Each carven into its own unique design.

 He soothes them between his fingers. This must have taken someone a lot of time to make. He wonders what the charms mean to the person who crafted them.

 That’s always the best part of the little trinkets Keith brings him, the stories behind them.

 He slides it onto his wrist with a smile. He’s definitely going to wear this one before he adds it to his “museum” as Keith calls it.

 It was definitely starting to look like one by this point. When he jokingly asked Keith to bring him back a souvenir from his first humanitarian mission, he didn’t think he actually would. He certainly didn’t think he’d keep on years later.

 As he walks towards the front of the ship, Lance thinks that maybe he should consider Keith’s offer more seriously. It would be nice to work with Keith again, and if he got in over his head, it wasn’t like he couldn’t back out.

 Lance slides into his seat, feeling like he’s already made up his mind, but when he looks out towards Altea, all that certainty turns into dead weight.

 Looming above him is Allura’s statue. Not just a monument to her life, but a reminder of how it was meant to be honored. For a moment there, he had completely forgot about the promise he made to stay with his family, and so easily too. He might as well have packed his bags.

 As he fumbles to engage the engine, remorse sits heavy in his guts. He feels watched, judged, and so very small beneath her gaze, but still manages to look up to her one more time.

 “I’m sorry, Princess. I promise to do right by you.”

 It’s not until he’s exiting the Teludav that he looks down at the bracelet and all at once remembers Keith’s offer and the unguarded sincerity in the way he said he was scared. Lance yanks the bracelet off and puts it away, along with thoughts of Keith and the Blade.

 He’ll sort this out later. Right now, his family is waiting on him.  

  


**xXx**

 

It's a quarter past six when Lance steps through his front door fifteen minutes late.

 From the foyer, he can smell ropa vieja, hears the voices of Marco and Rachel as they debate over Star Wars adaptations overlaying the harmonies of Billie Holiday that spill from a record player. His dad, Alonso, says something like _haven't we had enough war, specifically of the star variety_. Chair legs scratch the hardwood. Someone laughs. Lance thinks he can hear his mom humming.

 It's familiar, peaceful, and there's a rightness that fills his chest. A belonging.

 How could he leave this?

 He slides his shoes off and practically bounces towards the dining room with an easy grin, but when he steps through the threshold, instead of the smile being returned, he's met with a record scratch silence and five pairs of eyes, one belonging to a girl he doesn't know.

 In the absence of greeting, Billie croons

  _I_ _n my solitude, I'm afraid._

 And it only lasts a second, but damn, a second can be a long time in the right context.

 “You’re late,” Rachel says.

 “Uhhh.”

 “You knew we were having company over.”

 Lance gives Rachel an unimpressed look. “You sent two text threatening me if I was late to dinner. How does that translate into _we have company coming over_?” Lance slides in beside Marco and smiles at the girl in front of them. “You must be a friend of Rachel. I’m Lance, her friendly, better looking, over all cooler twin brother. And you are?”

 She pauses for longer than what would be considered necessary, as if processing what he had just asked. Then she turns to Rachel, face pinched in an unspoken question.

 Before he can even look at Rachel, she's yelps, “It's Agatha!”  

 Rachel laughs. It's her nervous one, high-pitch and boarding on a cackle. Lance has been told it's the same as his, which is both untrue and not the point. “Lance, I told you that.”

 “Wha- _ow_!”

 Did she actually just kick him from under the table?!

 “I’m sorry, _Agatha_. He’s always been bad with names.” Rachel glares daggers at him. “Right Lance?”

 Lance squints one eye at Rachel, but decides to let it go. Whatever’s going on, it’s obviously important to her, and it’s not like he wont find out eventually. He can play along. For now.

 “Yep, so bad it's nearly gotten me killed before.” Lance smiles tightly. “Sorry for being late _sis_.”

 “When is Lance not late?” Marco ask, dispelling the tension with his careless laughter. “He was even late being born. It's his birthright.”

 Agatha tilts her head and looks between him and Marco. “Late being born?”

 “I came out on time,” Rachel explains before thumbing Lance. “But big ears over there waited almost a whole day after me to show up to the party.”

 “Yeah, well that's why I'm the better looking twin. It takes time to look this good.”

 Their mom, Regina, smiles kindly at Agatha. “As you can see, Lance has been worrying me since before he was born.”

 “Huh, I guess we have that in common,” she says, before launching into a story about how, on her due date, her mother changed her mind about getting an epidural too late, causing her to be born knocked out and high out of her mind, terrifying her parents. They pass around plates to be filled throughout the story, laughing at the animated way she tells it.

 “How'd you make such a funny friend, Chel?” Marco teased.

 Piggybacking, Lance says. “How'd you make a friend?”

 “Hey! I'm perfectly sociable.”

 “She's such a battle axe,” Agatha says. “I'm constantly in awe of her. When we met in nursing school, and she told me she wanted to go into trauma I was immediately like _Yep, that sounds about right_.”

 Rachel is wearing a grin that screams _I know I'm good, but say it again_ and while her and Lance usually love to knock the other down a peg, Lance let's her have this one.

 “Of course she is. Being a total badass is an Alvarez trait.”

 His father holds up his glass in agreement while Regina smiles in an exasperated way that says _this family's full of dorks, and I could expose you all if I wanted to._

 “Well I don't know how she does it, wrangling the belligerents that come into the emergency room at night. I'll stick to the children's unit.”

 Lance shrugs, a spoon paused half way to his mouth. “Drunks, toddlers, they are pretty much the same.”

 Agatha barks out a laugh, and Lance doesn't miss the way Rachel raises an eyebrow at the reaction. She looks knowingly past Lance and towards Marco, seeming satisfied. Almost smug. Lance’s food feels harder to swallow than it should be. He _knows_ his family.

 Lance tries to let the feeling go, tells himself it’s nothing, but as dinner goes on, the strange behavior doesn't go away. It just dissolves into gloating by proxy on Lance's behalf, mostly from Rachel.

 Twenty minutes in, and Rachel’s saying, “Lance spent three summers volunteering at the sea turtle rehabilitation center. And not to beef up his resume or anything, just because he's super compassionate like that.”

 Lance slumps back and mutters “Is this a dinner or an oral biography?”

 Marco chuckles, and they side eye each other with matching smiles. It’s a nice little moment, and Lance thinks, _Okay, dinner isn’t going that bad._

 That’s until Agatha says, “Well, I’d expect as much from a Paladin of Voltron.”

 Those words are a burning heat twisting into his shoulder blades.

 Not this.

 Anything but this.

 Lance flinches at the feel of Marco’s hand landing against his upper back. “It’s still hard to believe that the kid I use to trick into eating dirt became a Defender of the Universe.”

 He looks to Lance for some sort of reaction, but Lance’s throat feels tight, and all he can manage to force out is a chuckle and a raspy, “Yeah, crazy.”

 “I mean, we knew Lance would do great things,” Rachel says. “It’s in his genes and all, but man, way to raise the bar to unreachable heights.”

 Lance could feel himself start to sweat from beneath the collar of his shirt and at his hairline. His hands clammy, he wipes away the moisture on the leg of his trousers.

 He use to want this, the accolades. He use to think being a paladin was something worth celebrating, but now, he knows it's just something he had to do.

 Fighting for your life and being lucky enough to survive to tell about it doesn’t make you special.

 “I-I didn’t really _do_ anything. It’s just something I fell into,” he snorts. “Literally. I fell into a cave.”

 “Lance,” Rachel says. “The Blue lion picked _you_ . Out of everyone in the known universe, it picked _you._ ”

 “Exactly! There were thousands of rebel soldiers who didn’t have to be picked by some crazy mecha-anime-cat-robot to fight. They just… did.”

 “Face it little bro, you’re a certified hero. No need to be modest about it. You saved the universe,” Marco says with a kindness that has Lance picking at his food in resignation.

 He didn’t do what they think he did. In the end, all of their efforts boiled down to one moment. One life. Allura’s life.

 She saved the universe, and he can’t stomach taking any credit for that.

 “We should respect your brothers modesty,” Regina says in that matriarchal way that’s been ending tantrums and sibling squabbles since Lance was old enough to have a voice in them, and he can feel Marco and Rachel sit up a little straighter, correcting themselves.

 “Okay…” They say softly.

 Lance feels that head to toe tightness slowly, carefully, unwind until his shoulders go slack. He looks at his mom, and she winks.

 “Well anyway,” Rachel clears her throat. “Surfing season’s coming up. You going to break out the board, Lance?”

 Lance is tired of _whatever_ this is, but he's not just going to leave dinner. It's obviously important to Rachel that he's here, even though he doesn't know what she wants from him. He's too drained and too frustrated to find out.

 “Maybe. Haven’t really thought about it.”

 “You should! And take Agatha with you when you do. She did a lot of sailing growing up.”

 “I was born and raised on the coast of Oregon,” Agatha shrugs. “Came to Cuba for the free college.”

 “Now she’s being modest.” Rachel leans in close to Lance, like she’s telling him a secret. “She came here to do relief work. Then she stayed for the free college.”

 “Uh… cool?”

“Huh, you two actually have a lot in common.”

 “We do?”

 “You know what else you have in common? Soccer. Lance loves soccer.”

 “I haven't played in-”

 “And Agatha played for the Women’s team in college. They’re one of the best in the country.” Rachel nudges Agatha with her elbow. “You two should have a match sometime. Lance loves a girl who can kick his ass.”

 Lance snaps to attention.

 What did Rachel just try to set up-

 And all at once, Lance rewinds through all the strange Rachel centric moments of today.

 The _be on time text_.

 The startled silence when he walked into the dinning room.

 The way his and Agatha's chairs were strategically placed in front of each others.

 Agatha’s confusion at Lance not knowing her name

 The way Rachel directed the conversation.

 And yeah, that’s exactly what she’s trying to do.

 Rachel’s trying to set him up with Agatha.

 Lance’s mouth is dry. His food tacky against his tongue, almost too thick to swallow. He tries not to look at Rachel, doesn’t want to make a scene, but his leg is bouncing so fast he’s sure she can feel it from the other side of the table.

 How could she? _Why_ would she?

 Lance looks at everyone but Rachel, passes over each person until he looking at Agatha.

 It's one of those occasional lulls where she gets to expand on Rachel's leading comments. She's talking about astrology, or something, but the words garble and fade into Billies honey like riffs, sharp little breaks in composition. So Lance just looks, _really_ looks.

 She's olived skinned and green eyed. Her short straight hair curves just slightly at the chin. She keeps subtly adjusting her fork in the pauses of her sentence, like maybe she's uncomfortable too, and he tries to focus on that fact, to make this dinner as painless as possible for them both. Because it's not her fault, it’s Rachel's.

 She'd tricked them both.

 He tries, but Lance's brain keeps reminding him how not-Allura Agatha is. Which is a stupid and obvious thought, but it's the one his head is stuck on.

 This isn't Allura. Nobody could replace Allura, and how dare Rachel imply otherwise.

 “-me and my father went to the observatory every summer to see the Milky Way,” Agatha says. “I've always loved the stars.”

 Lance crosses his arms and leans back in his seat. When he speaks, he makes sure it's in Rachel's direction. “Oh yeah? Well my _girlfriend_ became the stars.”

 The table hushes and Lance can feel the mood shift like sand. Agatha clears her throat.

 “Girl… friend?”

 From Agatha to Lance, Rachel does a sweeping smile-glare combo. “His _ex_ -girlfriend,” she says sweetly through gritted teeth.

 Yeah, Lance is over this.

 “We’re not exs. We didn't break up!”

 “You're not together either!”

 “That's doesn't matt-”

 “She's dead Lance.”

 And the room stops. The uncomfortable shifting stops. The eating stops. Lance near thinks Billie Holiday stops. Rachel is wide eyed and looks almost winded, like she didn't think she could say something so blunt or so crue. That her words held enough power to overwhelm everybody else's.

 There's a long, full bodied sigh, and everyone looks towards it.

 “I think I understand.” Agatha stands up, pushes her chair in, smooths out her dress and says, “I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable, Lance. That was never my intention. And Rachel.” His sister flinches. “Next time you want to set me up on a date, please make sure both of us actually know that it's a date.”

 Then Agatha is leaving, and Rachel's eyes follow, wavering between her and Lance like she can't decide on chasing after her or not. Lance pins her there and waits.

 The door shuts like a starting pistol, and off he goes.

 “I knew it!” Lance says, pushing to his feet. “I knew you were trying to set me up! Did you think I wouldn't notice?”

 Rachel barely glances up from where she's twisted away from him. She does not face him, just crosses her arms against her chest, “Well, to be fair, it's been so long since you've been on a date I didn't think you'd remember what one was like.”

 Of all the childish, passive aggressive-

 “Well that's my cue to leave,” Marco says getting up.

 “And where are you going?” their father asks, overlapping Regina's hand with his own.

 “No offense Pops, but that's the glory of not living at home anymore. You get to pick and choose your awkward family encounters, and I'm taking the bench on this one.”

 “Oh, don't pretend like you're not apart of this.” Rachel says, pointing at him in accusation. “You're just as involved as me, Marco.”

 Wait- Marco knew? It's kind of obvious, he guesses, but still…

 “I told you this was a bad idea,” he says and motions to Lance like he’s not in the room with them. “I told you that Lance needs to process his grief at his own pace. You setting him up blind on a blind date doesn't move him along any quicker.”

 “We get it Marco, you minored in psychology.” Rachel says. “Point is, you stay. You want Lance to move on just like the rest of us do.”

 His parents speak up, but Lance doesn't hear what they say. Something dense and scolding is pressed against his sternum, like hot coal. Did they really all know? Did they-

 “Did you guys all plan this?”

 The room quiets. Everyone looks at the other, but it's only Regina who speaks.

 “Well, in a way. Rachel said she knew someone she thought you'd get along well with,” she pauses. “A friend.”

 “So that's a yes?”

 Alonso narrows his eyes at Lance's tone. “It was supposed to be a push in the right direction, Lance.”

  _The right direction for who exactly?_

 “We hadn't thought Rachel would be so... _forceful_ and we had hoped she'd be more forthright with Agatha instead of misleading her.”

 “Oh what was I supposed to say!?” Rachel throws her hands in the air. “ _Come meet my tragically mourning brother. He'll cry in the ropa vieja. It'll be a grand time._ ”

 Lance clutches the fabric of his trousers as his sister turns, and finally, faces him dead on. “I am _not_ tragically mourning.”

 Rachel purses her lips. Opens and closes her mouth to take an aborted breath, and takes one step back as if to look at Lance from a distance.

 “You're right,” she says in a marginally calmer voice. “You're _wallowing_.”

 “I’m no-”

 “You don't go out,” she begins listing on her fingers “You don't have friends-”

 “Yes I-”

 “The Paladins don't count. They have their own lives and their own friends outside of you. They thrive Lance, but you…” Her arm gestures uselessly before falling back, and Lance doesn't think he's ever seen her so resigned.  “I bet you weren't even going to consider taking that position with the Blades.”

 Lance falters. “How did you…”

 “I found out today. Keith told Acxa, and Acxa told Veronica, and- honestly, it doesn't even matter.” Rachel plops down in her chair, still a table width apart. She looks away from him, and with a venom he can all but taste, says, “You're not going to go. You won't do anything that gets in the way of you tending to those flowers.”

 “Rachel-”

 Lance puts up a dismissive hand. “No mom, it’s okay.”

 He looks around at the dining room he's spent a countless amount of meals in. It was the same. The plastic potted tree Lance would feed his green beans to when no one was looking, the antique ceramic salt and pepper shakers Marco helped him glue back together before his mom found out, the chipped oak wood table with it’s equally as outdated argyle placemats, the one where his dad would spend hours quizzing Lance at for his Garrison entry exam.

 None of it has changed.

 His family hasn’t changed, but he has.

 Lance loves his family, would do anything for them, but looking at their disappointment, a disappointment he caused, he doesn’t know if he can fix this.  

 Lance is fine with the person he is.

 He doesn’t need to be fixed.

 But his family-

 They-

 They want him to be a person that just doesn’t exist anymore.

 “I have to go.”

 And before he knows how it happened, he's out the door.

 He should have stayed. He should have tried to convince them that that there's nothing to worry about. That he was fine.

 His family is where he belongs. It's where he wants to be, but he doesn't know _how_ to be there right now. He's too big and bursting with all the wrong edges.

 So he runs and doesn't stop until he can barely make out the porch light coming from the house. All he can hear is his breath settling, and stretched in front of him, all he can see is pink.

 Fleetingly, he considers turning around, but then falls to his back.

 Surrounding him, the petals of Allura’s flowers brush against his skin like hundreds of small reassuring touches.

 Above, Alluras life breaks through the sky like lights at the end of a dark tunnel. Her essence is infused in everything.

 She's everywhere, so even though he feels alone, he knows he's not.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Wait, wait, wait,” Pidge calls, holding her hands up in a T for timeout. “Hold on the space phone.”
> 
> Lance looks to the other side of the table. Shiro and Coran are wearing pleased smiles while Hunk gawks beside an equally as bewildered Pidge, eyes swinging back and forth between Lance and Keith.
> 
> “You're going to join the Blade?” Hunk says slowly. “The space charity one? The one ran by Keith? Our Keith? Galra Keith?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm baffled by the response I've gotten so far. Seriously guys, thank you from the bottom of my heart. This is my Valentines present to you. 
> 
> And a great big thank you to my amazing beta Astro_Latte. If you want to be kept up to date with my progress on this story or just listen to my cry about Lance, follow me at twitter handle @spunkynihilist

Things have changed in the Alvarrez house. 

Not all at once, but over time. The differences were subtle, but there, easy to ignore until they weren’t. His family had been talking about him. 

_ Conspiring _ . 

And okay, maybe it wasn’t as premeditated as he’s imagining it to be. But moments like tonight’s dinner, where he was expected to drop everything he was feeling to be shoved into a blind date with a total stranger, aren't just snap of the finger decisions. It was their last resort. 

And in retrospect, if Lance was being honest, there had been signs that now stood out as his family trying to give him a hint. 

Veronica’s recurring mentions of the Garrison’s desperate need for teachers. 

Rachel practically begging him to check out the bars on the boardwalk with her friends.

Luis driving from Havana one weekend a month to work on the farm, reasoning that  _ Lance needed a break every once in a while _ . 

Even Marco, in the year that followed Lance’s return from Altea, had thrown around the word “therapy” a couple of times, claiming it could be a family event.

For his family, dealing with Lance was like seeing someone peacefully asleep on a couch and trying to wake them up with gentle nudges and soft whispers until you finally get fed up enough to shove them off the sofa. And when you do succeed in waking them, it’s only to tell them you think they'd be more comfortable in their bed.  

Well, Lance is awake now, but he was just fine where he was. 

And it’s frustrating because it’s both very considerate and not at all. His family cares, and Lance doesn’t know  _ how _ to stay mad at them for that, because he doesn't  _ want _ to stay mad at them for that. 

Looking at the sky, he lays heavily entrenched in the swallows of juniberry flowers.

Lance knows he's changed, but in a lot of ways, he's the same. He's still a son and a brother. He still helps his mama make dinner and cracks dumb jokes at the table. He still play-wrestles with Rachel and watches old school Disney movies with Nadia and Silvio. 

And what's wrong with the way he has changed anyway? He's more experienced, he knows himself better and is less concerned with what others think. During his time as a paladin, he learned that sometimes the place you belong is right where you started. 

Aren't those good things? Lance thought so. If only he knew how to make his family think so, too.

Behind Lance, the flowers part. Sitting up, he’s startled from his thoughts. 

He turns around to see his mother climbing up towards him and sighs, “Mamá, what are you doing?”

“You don’t make things easy on your poor mother,” she huffs. “God forbid you hide in a well-lit area.”

“Yeah, well, that’s why they call it hiding,” Lance says. A sudden and full body uneasy reminds him of what he’s avoiding, and he turns his back on her. “It's not supposed to be easy.”

Lance hears her walk up beside him, but continues to look pointedly away. He knows it’s wishful thinking, but he hopes she’ll turn back around. He’s not ready to talk right now, doesn't know what he’d say. 

Instead, a jacket drops into his lap. Lance glances between it and his mother, stumped by the gesture.

“It’s getting cold out here,” she says.

Lance’s hand hovers indecisively above the jacket. She’s not wrong, it is getting chilly, and their breath is starting to crystallize in the night air, but the petty part of him would rather freeze than accept her kindness right now. 

It’s silly, he knows. She’s just worried like any parent would be, but he also knows seemingly innocent gestures of affection are his mother’s bait of choice. How many times has she shown up to his door when he was upset only to coax him open with a mug of hot chocolate or a piece of pie until he was comfortable enough to spill his heart about what was really bothering him?

He’s about to tell her that he’s fine and thanks but no thanks for the jacket, but before he can Lance notices that she’s wearing her gray parka, the one she reserves only for the long days outside, in an effort to not freeze while tending to the livestock. Her hair is wrought with frizz and there are a few leaves stuck in her curls, making him wonder how far into the property she went looking for him. By the looks of the flashlight in her hand, anywhere was on the table. She’s even wearing a pair of glasses that she only admits to needing when doing something particularly important. It’s quite the sight, her standing there like a one women search party, and Lance, the mama’s boy that he is, is weak to it. 

No one would ever love him like his Mamá does, and it’s that same love that makes this problem even harder. 

He shrugs on the jacket.

It’s not surprising when she sits down beside him. She’s always had this system that Lance can never figure out. Some sort of parental algorithm that tells her when to pull back and when to push forward. It’s usually right, but Lance isn’t going to be waited out on this one. He just scoots over an inch and tucks his knees beneath his chin. They sit looking at the sky, a silence suspended between them. Lance regards it intently, like waiting for a shooting star during a meteor shower, anticipating the fall.

“I don’t appreciate the stars as much as I use to,” Regina says, conversationally. 

“Remember on Varadero Beach when you and Dad would load all of us into the car and Luis would bring his telescope?” Lance asks, taking the change of topic like an olive branch. “And Marco and I would fight over who would get to see the stars longer?”

“Yes, I do,” she smiles, giving her son an impish look. “And I remember the time Veronica spiked the thermoses with marshmallow vodka, thinking we wouldn't notice since it was with hot chocolate.”

“You knew?!” Lance gasped. “I didn’t even know what that was, just that my bones felt all fuzzy and Rachel kept giggling.”

“A mother always knows,” she says, leaning her face against her palm. “Also I’m your mother, not a robot. I know what sugar liqueur tastes like.”

Lance can’t help but laugh, before looking up at the sky himself. How did he get so far away from that place? How does he get back?

“These stars are beautiful,” she says “Although I’m sure it’s nothing like seeing them up close.”

“Oh yeah, you should see them after your ships been corrupted by an evil alien and your flying straight into the surface of one.” Lance tries for lighthearted, but telling by his mother’s face it doesn't land that way, He pulls his legs tighter. “But I’ll take this view any day.”

“Sometimes things look better from further away,” she hums in consideration, and then, almost to herself, mutters, “It’s all about perspective, I suppose.”

“Did you come all the way out here to talk about the stars? Or is there a lecture coming?” he asks and she shakes her head.

“Just an apology.”

He gives her a quick and weary side glance. “From just you or Rachel too?”

“Your sister is stubborn,” she relents. “But you know what’s in her heart.”

“This isn’t a birthday card, Mamá. You can’t just sign her name at the bottom of your apology.”

“She had good intentions.”

He scoffs. “I should have absorbed her in the womb.” 

“We  _ all _ had good intentions.”

Lance’s eyes snap towards his mother like he’s picking her out of a lineup, surefire and accusatory. He thought this was an apology, and yet he sees that it’s really not. God forbid the universe made this easy on him.

“The road to hell is paved with good intentions, Mamá,” he says. “And that sounds less like an apology and more like a justification.”

“I just think that if you listen to what I have to say-”

“You said no lectures.”

“ _ Lance _ .”

“ _ Mamá _ .”

Her mouth snaps shut and she exhales loudly from her nose, the puffs of air escaping like she was a dragon building their embers. She shakes her head and exhales heavy and exasperated as if reasoning with Lance is like trying to reason Kaltenecker up a hill.

Which, fair enough. He’s not feeling all too reasonable.

“Look,” he says, running his hand through his hair. “It’s not that I don’t want to talk, I do a  _ lot  _ actually. But it’s like my mind is so garbled that every time I try to argue with you or Rachel that I’m okay, you don’t seem to want to listen to me.”

His mother looks at him, her eyes are soft. Lance is running out of ways to verbalize his frustration, the discarded words pile in his mouth like crumpled up pieces of paper, and he sifts through them hoping the right thing to say exist somewhere within all his failed attempts. She beats him to it.

“Are  _ you _ listening to you, mijo?” 

He feels the exhaustion set into his bones. This is growing tiresome, they’re talking in circles. They fundamentally disagree on where Lance is and it wouldn’t matter what he said. She just disagrees with it. If she didn’t, they wouldn’t be out here right now. 

“I know what you're talking about, but do you know what I'm talking about?” Lance let's lose a sigh and drags a hand over his face. He’s exhausted, over the mind prickling, limb heavy, repetitiveness of this night. This must be what hell feels like, an argument with your family that just never resolves. “Are  _ you _ even listening to me?”

“Lance Emeterio Alvarez,” she snaps, sitting up,” I have been watching and listening for the last four years and now it is your turn.”

Lance shuts his mouth and locks his jaw, helpless but to wait as she gathers herself. They're inching towards an overlook that leads to nothing and every one of her thoughtful silences feels like another second hanging from that cliffside, waiting to see if she’ll pull him up or finally realize he’s too heavy and let him fall.

“I know the way war can take beautiful things and make them look so ugly,” his mother says finally, her words purposeful yet tentative, like trying to find balance on a tightrope. Her hand rests on his knee, and she looks determined, but also a little desperate. She needs him to listen. “That’s something you never should have had to experience.”

Lance’s knees slowly unbend and he turns towards her just slightly. He knows that before she was a mother at all, fought in her own war. Cuba's second revolution that ended the regime brought about by it's first one. The knowledge had always been there, but it's one of those things he doesn't think about because-

“You never talked about it.”

His mother nods in agreement, and with a full body inhale, begins to unfold from herself too. 

“That part of my life had so much power over me,” she says, softly. “I thought that by giving it a voice, it would have even more power, but now I know I was wrong. There are things I never dealt with, and I just wish you didn’t have to deal with them as well.” 

Most kids look up to their parents, and Lance is no different. His mother is steady hands and earned wisdom and presents herself as the person she is today was the person she always planned on becoming. Hearing her talk about regrets is unprecedented. 

“Do you want to go work with the Blade of Marmora and help your friend?” she finally asks. The question is abrupt and disorienting, and Lance feels himself immediately close up, arms wrapping around his legs as if to brace against it. Against his skin, he feels the bracelet that Keith had gifted to him earlier. He knew they'd come back to this, but he feels stupidly caught off guard by the ambush.

“I want to stay here and help with the farm,” he says, and his response is reflexive. Obligatory.

“The son I raised never wanted to be a farmer,” she presses. “He wanted to  _ fly _ . To explore.”

Shadows lay thick across her face. Her eyes are all he can see, clouding like two crystal balls, showing him who they think he is and where they think he is supposed to go and Lance hates it. He didn't fight for his survival to have someone else dictate what he was suppose to do with it. 

“I have explored,” he says with a sardonic smile, “I didn’t exactly like what I saw.”

“You saw the universe through war. War is sacrifice. It takes things you didn’t even know were possible of taking.” Regina catches one of his hands in between both of hers and squeezes. “Here's what no one tells you though -  _ you can take it back _ . That passion it took, that belongs to you, mijo. It’s still out there, but you have to go and find it.”

The word drops at his feet like a hand grenade with the pin pulled.

Passion. 

Is that what this was?

Passion is what he felt the first time he went to his first airshow, cotton candy sticky hands reaching for his father, begging to be put on his shoulders so he could get closer to the sky. 

Passion is why he applied to the Galaxy Garrison. That same passion is what send him crying in a bathroom stall for half an hour when he didn’t make fighter class. 

Passion fueled him while flying Blue, howling into the boundless pull of space _ , _ weightless and giddy and completely self-indulgent. Her approval roared in him like applause, a standing ovation that pleaded for his return. Her silence hung heavy from his throat like a chain when she didn’t clap for him anymore but was cut when Red’s roar called for him. 

Passion was the simmering warmth of affection he felt every time he looked at Allura until his fond glances turn scathing with worried disapproval and that heat became inescapable. It shifted to something else. That’s what followed him until her death. It’s what keeps following him.

Passion’s what he felt when he and Keith formed the wings of Voltron.

Lance looks down at his bracelet again, and jerks his hand away from his mother, pushing himself up. He takes a few aimless steps forward and leaves his complicated thoughts about Keith buried beneath the flowers. 

Behind him, he can hear his mother getting up, probably to follow him, and he feels a visceral need to keep the distance. 

“I’m fine, Mamá,” he says, slinging around, feeling his eyes well with tears. “Yes, I had passion, but out in space, I missed you guys every day. I was so worried I’d never see you again.” 

“I know, but it’s more than that, right?” Her gaze moves to the flowers for a moment before it turns back towards him, as firm and settled as the space between them. “May I ask you a question?”

He nods and she stays in place, but still close enough for him to see her sad smile. 

“If things had gone differently, would you have gone to live on Altea with Allura?”  

“I-” he stammers. “That has nothing to do with this!”

“I think it does.” 

Lance thinks he might scream. Frustration expands through him, futile and eager until it has nowhere left to go but out. He feels it’s impending presence barging its way up his throat, and all Lance can do is hold it there and wonder how he fights to be with a family that’s fighting him back?

Instead, he tearfully chokes out, “But I want to be  _ here _ !”

He wants to make them happy.

He wants to go to the beach and look at the stars.

He wants one of his mother's hugs. 

He wants to make them understand. 

He wants his family back.

He wants Allura back.

Lance is  _ hopeless _ to want, but he thinks that if he can just convince them that he's still the same in all the ways that matter, then everything else can come later. 

But that won't work. The losses in Lance are not expendable to them, and after tonight, there's no more pretending that they are. They'll always keep searching for these missing pieces. 

Unless he proves that there's nothing to find.

And just like that, his urge to scream is replaced with answers, his frustration replaced by acceptance. He takes a breath, rubbing the tears from his eyes roughly.

He knows what he has to do. 

“I'll join the Blade.”

His mother’s eyes widen and lips curl into something hesitant yet hopeful. “But I thought…” 

“Come on Mamá, after tonight I don't think Rachel and I can live in the same solar system together,” he laughs humorlessly. “Let alone the same house.”

“So that's it? You're going to avoid your sister?”

“No,” Lance sighs, shaking his head. “I'm fine with the person I am. It's all of you who have the problem. So if I need to go on  _ another  _ Hero's Journey across the galaxy to prove that to you, then so be it.” 

She steps towards him. “Lance-” 

“Bu-bu-bu,” he cuts her off, holding up a finger and stopping her. “This doesn't come free. I have a condition.”

“Oh?” 

“This is a trial run, okay?” he explains. “Six months, and if I decide I'm not happy there, then that's it. I come home and there are no more setups. No more lectures. I get to live my life the way I want to.”

For a moment, his mother stands there, regarding thoughtfully. He can’t imagine what she’s thinking, which bothers him. 

When did he get so bad at reading his family? 

Before, he might have fidgeted beneath her long-winded gaze, but if there’s something he’s confirmed tonight, it’s in all the ways that he's changed. He’s not that squirm- easy, elastic kid anymore. He’s isn’t going to pull just because someone tugs him.

So he stares back, just as unyielding, until her frown lifts into a smile, one way more optimistic than it has any right to be. 

“That works for me,” Regina says with a short, almost relieved sounding laugh. And because he can’t hold back anymore, Lance allows the tension in his shoulders release and allows his mother to gather him up in her arms.

She sighs, "I'm proud of you, Lance." At that moment her arms squeeze a fraction tighter and Lance breathes more slowly, his body melting into his mother as every muscle loses its tension to the night air. "And who knows? I think you could prove yourself wrong.” 

Lance struggles not to say don't hold your breath, to not tell her that he already knows how this is going to play out. If she doubts his sincerity for a moment, she could change her mind, and then he may never close the distance between him and his family. 

With a new determination, he forces a smile, and as they walk away from the field of flowers and back towards the house, the azure marks beneath his eyes begin to blaze. 

 

**xXx**

 

Lance is starting to think that it’s not just his family who had been conspiring against him, but the universe too. Because after a week of opening up his texting app to message Keith and then immediately closing it, picking at a nasty tangle of anxiety until there were too many knots to work through. Lance was sure that as soon as he saw Keith he’d be unable to greet him with anything other than a loud and out of place  _ when do we leave, huh _ ? 

So of course, in typical Murphy’s Law fashion, Keith was late to dinner for the first time in three years. 

He and Pidge are being swept up in one of Hunk’s signature hugs when he notices. The pair kick their feet in a futile attempt to find purchase while Hunk sways, belting out  _ reunited and it feels so good _ . Pidge squirms and gasps in an exaggerated need for air, while Lance just laughs along and tells Hunk he’s missed him too.

He doesn’t realize he’s looking for Keith until his gaze moves over Hunk’s shoulder to see him missing by Shiro and Coran’s side. Hunk sits them down, and Lance’s eyes bounce from paladin to paladin like a pinball, only to grow more frantic in their movements each time they don't catch on the one person he'd been so eager to see. 

“Where's Keith?”

His question isn’t answered right away, which kickstarts Lance’s anxieties.

Since making his decision to join the Blade of Marmora, Lance has been plagued with  _ what if’s _ . 

At first, they were pretty rational, like worries about who’s going to be the pilot for the co-op and who’s going to pick up the slack on the farm. But the longer he put off messaging Keith, the more irrational his reasons for avoidance became.   

He thought about how lonely and abandoned Mrs. Beatrice might be with no one there willing to hold up their entire day just long enough for her to tell them one more story. He thought about his mom slipping and falling because he wasn’t there to grab something from the top shelf of the pantry when she needed it and about Marco going out for the first decent swell of the surfing season and drowning because he hit his head on his board while Lance wasn’t there to help him.  

It’s was like he was standing on a ledge staring down at a bottomless chasm that only got bigger the longer he looked. On the other side is his family and he knows what he needs to do to get to them, but he keeps tripping over his own momentum, too consumed by the boundless potential for error in his dismount. 

It had been a hellish week. Lance isn't used to that constant, badgering type worry, but he had attributed it to ripping himself away from his family, the hesitation and anxiety akin to being stuck under a bolder and then forced to remove his own arm to free himself.

But now Keith’s not even here. As silly and ridiculous as Lance knows it is, he can’t help the impending sense of dread Keith’s absence puts on him, like if he doesn’t see Keith right now he might never see him again.

It has him asking what the actual fuck is wrong with him. 

Mindlessly, he fidgets with the bracelet on his wrist turning to Shiro, who’s now wrapped up in his own hug. He looks at Lance with an  _ oh yeah, that reminds me _ expression. 

“Keith had to attend a last minute meeting with the Galran delegates earlier today. It put him behind schedule, but he should be here soon.”

His shoulders fall. Yeah, Lance consoles himself, that makes sense.

Typical Keith. He's always being tugged at by two different sides of the galaxy, and stubbornly planting a foot in each. It doesn't matter that he usually leans more toward the Daibazaal side or that these dinners are the only days Lance is guaranteed to see him at all. 

It’s no big deal.

Really.

Okay, so maybe it’s a little, tiny minuscule bit of a deal, or a least his churning stomach thinks so, but Lance blames it on the week he’s had. He’s already worked up, so who can fault him for being a little worried over Keith being late for dinner? It’s just one dinner. 

Even If Keith's never late for dinner.

Like never in the three years since they started to have them never, and-

_ Fuck _ , what is he going on about right now? Keith is just late. Chill it, Alvarez.

“Keith  _ I’m not a politician  _ Koagne being held up by politics?” Lance snorts, hoping his voice sounds teasing instead of strained. “Why am I not surprised?” 

Coran ushers them towards the table, and as soon as they’re seated, servers begin to circle them in practiced synchrony. He instructs them to leave the drinks, but to please hold off on their meals until Keith arrives. Pidge groans and mutters something about not eating since breakfast. At least, that's the gist of what Lance hears as he glares at the empty chair beside him. 

What's so important? Was he okay? What if Keith's-

“He'll be here soon,” Shiro says, and Lance is mortified by the possibility that he shared his irrational thoughts aloud. He looks up, blinking, and realizes that Shiro's talking to Pidge. “There was a terrorist attack on one of the Daibazaal trading convoys today. It’s the first in over a phoeb.”

“I thought their new security procedure was airtight?” Hunk asks, concerned and Pidge shakes her head. 

“Obviously not.”

Lances mind goes blank, and he almost thinks he misunderstood because Shiro sounds way too casual about an attack. As if he’s talking about what movie he and Curtis went to see over the weekend and not something that put innocent people, and Keith, in danger. But no, he didn't misunderstand, because of course, it's a terrorist group. Of course with Keith the most out there, the irrational option is also the most likely one. 

Lance is squeezing tightly to his glass for composure when Hunk throws his head back. 

“I can’t believe those guys are at it again! I had to use the last of my Flargar root to broker a trade agreement between the Photorians and Daibazaal. No one wants to send their ships to Daibzaal because they're scared they'll get looted.” His raised his arms above his head before they go limp by his side. “Do you know how hard it is to get Flargar root?”

No, Lance doesn't know that along with some other key issues it would seem. 

Not that that's unusual. Their all apart of the Galactic Alliance and Lance isn’t, meaning he’s learned to do his fair share of listening over the last three years. He doesn’t have much to contribute that wouldn’t sound incredibly mediocre besides conversations between some of the most influential people in the universe. But there are some things, he thinks, that he should know. That he deserves to know.

Like that Keith was currently late because his new home planet had ongoing terrorist attacks.

Again, does anybody else realize how dangerous that sounds? Is he losing it?

Lance understands that he’s sitting beside giants, like a kid at the adult table, and that's a big deal to him is probably just another work day to the rest of the paladins. Besides, beyond occasionally asking for personal advice, like when Pidge was trying to decide which video game they should get Matt for his birthday or when Hunk was stress eating over the long distance relationship between him and Shay, they’ve never relied on him in that way.

But Keith does. In just the last year alone since Lance started the co-op, Keith's confided in Lance an innumerable amount of times about his work to help more people with the Blade’s efforts. So why not with this? 

Maybe it’s just another bout of misplaced worry, but learning the news of recent strife on Daibazaa from anyone but Keith comes at him with a jump scare type suddenness, and Keith’s absence only gets bigger, expanding in his mind until it pushing against the back of his eyes. He pulls out his phone, wanting to temper that pressure in the only way he knows how.

**_Lance_ ** _ : You better show up, Mullet! You wouldn’t want to make Hunk cry. _

He shoots off a text to Keith before pocketing his phone, teasing the beads of his bracelet while he waits for a response. 

One comes almost immediately.  

**_Keith:_ ** _ I would never do that to Hunk. _

Lance reads the text twice, his shoulders loosening a little more each time. It’s near idiotic how relieved just seven words from Keith makes Lance feel. 

His phone vibrates again. 

**_Keith_ ** _ : I wouldn't miss this for the world...Be there soon. _

Lance can’t help but grin, pursing his lips to keep from laughing. Keith would send multiple texts, like a psychopath. Also, he’s the only person Lance knows under the age of 50 who uses that many eclipses when they text. And who talks like that anyway? As if Lance invited Keith to the christening of his first child instead of reminding him to show up to a dinner they have once every three months. 

Stupid Keith and his intense yet completely welcomed misplaced sincerity.

His worry really was silly, wasn’t it? It’s like being scared you’re never going to see your shadow again just because it disappears in a dark room. They’re Lance and Keith. That’s not going to change because of one unshared moment.

“Dude, are we going to have to take away your phone again?”

Lance looks up to where Hunk is glaring at him in parental-like disappointment. 

Pidge rolls their eyes. “Look at that dopey grin. He’s probably playing one of those phone games again.”

“That was one time!” Lance says, making a show of putting his phone back in his pocket. “And I was really close to beating my top score.”

The next few minutes are filled with talks about video games and idle Garrison gossip that Shiro somehow pretends he can’t condone while simultaneously contributing. It’s light and the sort of effortless, conversation Lance needs after the last week. 

Then Keith’s ship is materializing from the still open Teludav, chasing away the last bit of lingering anxiety his absence had put in Lance’s chest. The conversation continues, even as they all turn their heads to watch as it lands, and continue to watch as Keith disembarks from the craft. 

He lumbers over, eyes shifting beneath their attentive gazes. A few feet from the table he stops with a wave and says “Uh, hi?” 

Lance snorts loudly, earning him a glare from Keith. But come on, how's he supposed to react with Keith standing there all stock still and awkward, like a kid who just came in late for class? It's adorable in a specifically Keith kind of way. 

He leans back and regards Keith with a smirk, “Well look who decided to show up un-fashionably late.”

Keith tsk’s, but any genuine irritation behind it is lost to the way he walks towards his seat without the  tension he had seconds prior. 

“ _ You _ got me this jacket, Lance.” 

“And thank god I did, because it's the only nice thing you own.” 

No sooner than Keith sits down, the servers are back again. As plates are settled in front of them, Coran greets him with a warm smile. 

“I'm glad you could make it, Keith. I was beginning to worry we'd have to start without you,” Coran says as one of the servers reaches over him to place the food. “Kishba doesn't taste quite the same warmed up.” 

“For the record, I was fine starting without you,” Pidge says, already shoveling a spoonful of bisque in their mouths.

“I'm sorry about that,” Keith says, looking pained. “Today was the start of a new deployment, and I had to get my team settled in and then-” 

“It's fine, Keith,” Shiro says, resting a comforting hand on Keith’s shoulder. “You made it and that's all that matters.” 

Keith relaxes visibly under Shiro’s support. Lance knew that he still struggled with balancing his Voltron family with his Blade family. Even though it happened years ago, Lance is sure that moment when Keith came back from a mission to see the entire team glaring at him in disappointment was not something he would ever forget. 

But one mention of deployment and all of Lance’s nerves start to flash like a security alarm. Worry infiltrates him, sauntering right past the no trespassing signs to squat in his chest. 

_ ‘Ah, hello my old enemy,’ _ Lance thinks darkly at the feeling.  _ ‘I thought I killed you.’  _

But like a horror movie, of course, that worry isn’t gone for good. 

Irrational thoughts: The Sequel it is then.

It feels different this time though. Instead of a week-long slight grip that tightens in increments like a slow savoring kind of strangulation, it feels more like an omnipresent pressure looming against his throat. It’s oppressive but bearable. Lance takes it as a win.

Not one to give more information than asked for, Keith tells the paladins about The Blade of Marmora’s new initiative in sparse detail, only offering up more when prompted. 

“So is this going to be Voltron 2.0?” Hunk asks between chews. “Minus the kitty cat robots?”

“My central unit is still the same, but the specialized team is new,” Keith replies. “There's some adjusting, but they're all just as thrilled to be a part of this as the rest of us.” 

“How long will your unit stay on each planet?” 

“It depends. We're aiming for one and a half phoebs right now.” Keith glances sidelong at Lance. He’s not subtle about it, even though Lance can tell he’s trying to be. “It's hard to say. We’re still looking for someone to specialize in agricultural.” 

Keith’s words are like slight warning squeeze, a little bit of pressure just to remind Lance of who’s in charge here. 

“Hmmm,” Coran thoughtfully soothes one side of his mustache. “Altea has several skilled farmers. I'm sure one of them would be up for the job.” 

The squeeze tightens at the offer and Lance’s gut lurches, and yeah- he  _ does not _ like that at all. 

“Yeah,” Pidge adds on. “I know there are botany specialists at the Garrison who'd jump at the chance to explore a new alien ecosystem.” 

“The spots already filled,” Lance says before he can stop himself.  He had a plan to pull Keith aside after dinner, but his dumb lizard brain h went on autopilot. 

It's hard to ignore that instinctive part of himself, the one that hides behind a puffed out chest has him thinking  _ why not me _ , even when he knows damn well why not him. 

Anyone Coran or Pidge recommended would be a better choice than Lance, he knows that, Keith would too if he wasn't thinking with his big stupid heart trying to pull him out of some funk that he isn’t even in. 

But here he is, being possessive over a position he never even wanted or deserved to begin with.

He bypasses the various confused expression of his old teammates to the one that matters most. 

“You’ve decided to accept my offer then?” Keith’s voice tetters on the side of hopefulness, his eyes soft with gratitude. Lance tries to make eye contact, but he feels uncharacteristically flustered.

“Well, yeah,” Lance flips his wrist over in his lap to absentmindedly teases the beads of his bracelet. “I talked to my family about it and I decided to join you guys on a trial basis. I figured I could try it out for a few months.” Lance licks his lips before pulling them into a clumsy smile. “Besides, did you really think I was going to leave my space ranger partner out there high and dry?” 

“Wait, wait, wait,” Pidge calls, holding her hands up in a T for timeout. “Hold on the space phone.”

Lance looks to the other side of the table. Shiro and Coran are wearing pleased smiles while Hunk gawks beside an equally as bewildered Pidge, eyes swinging back and forth between Lance and Keith. 

“ _ You're _ going to join the Blade?” Hunk says slowly. “The space charity one? The one ran by Keith? Our Keith? Galra Keith?” 

“You don’t have to sound so surprised about it!” Lance argues, feeling his collar warm. “I know I’m not a super genius Altean or some fancy botanist, but that doesn’t mean-”

“No! Lance. Come on, buddy. You know I didn’t it like that.” 

“I mean, I kind of mean it like that,” Pidge mumbles and is elbowed hard in the side by Shiro.

Lance glares indignantly but finds it hard to maintain while Hunk dips his head and rubs the back of his neck, the epitome of contrite. Again, Lance reminds himself they have every reason to doubt him, but that doesn’t mean he likes it.

“Well, what did you-” Lance flinches, just barely dodging a cloth napkin being flung towards his face. “Ow! What the hell, Pidge?!” he scowls at the culprit, before pointing to her and turning to Shiro. “Shiro, Pidge threw a napkin at me!”

“What do you want him to do?” Keith asks, cocking an eyebrow playfully. “Ground her?” 

Lance frowned.

“Don’t be dumb, Lance. We’re surprised because you've never shown any inclination towards leaving your family’s farm,” Pidge says, pulling his attention back to her. You've always seemed content to live out your own version of  _ Homeward Bound _ .”

“Yeah, what they said,” Hunk agrees. “But I think you meant  _ Little House on the Prairie _ .” 

“You’re both wrong,” Shiro says, squeezing the bridge of his nose, migraine already forming. “It’s  _ Home on the Range _ .” 

“That's a song!” 

“It’s also a movie!”

Keith leans into his personal space until their shoulders touch and Lance almost jumps at the sudden contact. He can feel his warmth pressing up against him, distractingly. “What are they talking about?” 

“No idea.” Lance shrugs, a little grateful that their friends distracted themselves with their own bickering. “Think we could slip away without them noticing?”

“I specialize in stealth,” he says, near indiscernible humor in his voice that takes a Keith linguist like Lance to decipher. “You on the other hand…”

“Calm down, Mother Teresa,” Lance huffs, still trying to adjust to keep his face from warming at their close contact. “The only thing you specialize in is handing out eggplants. Not that different from me.” 

Keith chuckles, and Lance can almost feel a smile forming against his neck. He tilts his head to return it, but before he can-

“Anyway,” Shiro says, starling Lance to sit up straight. “Whatever brought on this change of heart, we're proud of you, Lance. It's not easy to step out of your comfort zone.” 

Lance shifts uneasily,. part of him wanting to preen and another knowing he doesn’t fully deserve it.  

“This is so cool, dude!” Hunk says, nearly knocking his glass over in his excitement as he slaps Lance on the back. “You get to travel to all these different planets and learn about their cultures! That’s some old school Voltron adventuring.”

“Ha ha, yeah,” he says, taking his own glass to drink his water loudly.

“And you’re going to be a member of the BOM!”

“Don’t call it that. That’s not gonna be a thing,” Keith flings and Hunk ignores him, still talking at Lance.

“Are you going to get one of those cool blades?”

“Uh-” Lance tries but Hunk doesn’t wait until he turns to Keith.

“Keith, does Lance get one of one those cool blades?”

“You’re focusing on the wrong thing, Hunk,” Pidge says, and Keith nods.

“Thank you, Pidge”

“Oh yeah, and what’s the right thing?”  Hunk demands, crossing his arms in a challenge.

“Science, of course!” Pidge grins, adjusting her glasses as she points upwards with her fork dramatically. ”After the Blade is done, they’ll have conducted the biggest ecological surveys known to man!”

Keith groans and Shiro turns to him and shrugs, “She’s not wrong.”

“Lance gets to be a part of it!” she continues, eyes shining. ”What’s cooler than that? What a lucky break...if only I didn’t have so much work. I’d love to tag along and see how all the different planets are adjusting after the universe reset when Allura-”

“Pidge!” everyone but Lance and Coran bark, stopping her mid-sentence. Her mouth snaps closed and the table falls into an uncomfortable silence. Lance feels the anchor in his stomach drop, and awkwardly begins scraping at the food on his plate. Keith shifts next to him, visibly uncomfortable. Pidge folds in on herself and inwardly, Lance can’t help but enjoy her embarrassment, if only a little.

Eventually Coran clears his throat, “Well, we don’t need to avoid saying Allura’s name like it’ll summon something sinister.”

“Coran is right,” Shiro smiles sadly and he turns to Keith and Lance, eyes sparkling in the Altean sunset. “Thinking of all the people you’ll be helping...Allura would be really proud of you both.” 

Lance feels his throat tighten, and he’s fearful to say anything knowing that any sound he might make would just come out choked. Their expectations were so much worse than their doubts. 

The next several minutes are spent giving Lance proverbial pats on the back, and asking Keith his larger plans for the group. It turns into an impromptu celebration, both for Keith's initiative and for Lance's involvement in it, and while no one says it outright, Lance can feel their collective relief.

His friends unfurl around him, chest expanding with long-awaited exhales that makes all their past ones feel restrained in comparison. He’s back in their world, and they greet him as if they’ve been eagerly waiting for him for years. 

Lance doesn’t know what’s harder to swallow, the understanding that everyone he cares about sees him as this prodigal son that’ll eventually find his way back home given enough time. Or that he’s letting them think they’re right, and he’s following the footsteps of his younger self to a porch light his family left on five years ago. 

Or maybe it’s that, for a fleeting moment, he wishes they were right. That for once, his head reached higher than their elbows. That he belonged at this table just as much as anyone else. 

He wants to tell them that this is all a ruse. That he would have never had agreed to help Keith if it wasn’t going to lead him right back to the place they didn’t want him to be in the first place. But he can’t bring himself to do it. 

He’s made his decision and now the consequences are his, squeezing around his neck like a collar locked to a six-month-long leash.

And whats six months anyway? He’s been unwilling out in space for longer than that. It’ll be fine.

That's what he tells himself as the dinner winds down and he sees his teammates off. He waves goodbye as Pidge, Hunk and Shiro make their ways back to Earth, and he hangs back to meet Keith at his ship. 

“So, you’re really doing this?” Keith asks, leaning against the door.

“Like I can trust your mullet brain to figure out the agriculture of an entire planet,” Lance smiles, crossing his arms over his chest, hopefully hiding his nerves. “When should I start? Do I need to fill out any paperwork? Take some HR training? Orientation?”

“Very funny,” Keith says and then they fall into the familiar conversation of planning, determining what day Lance will officially be joining the team.

Six months isn’t that long.

That’s what he tells himself as he spends the next week making preparations for his departure and again when he tearfully hugs his mother goodbye. 

It’s what he tells himself as he watches a Blade issued aircraft lands on the far side of his farm, the juniberry flowers shifting beneath its wheels.

Six months, huh?

“Hey!” Keith says as the door to the ship opens, welcoming Lance inside. His face is all excitement and adrenaline rush. “You ready?”

Lance feels his lips pulling back, his heart beating rapidly in his chest, like a hummingbird stuck between his ribcage. 

He could do six months.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's been so long. It’s not that different from how he remembers it. Far off lights in a field of negative space. It still makes his breath grow thick and his stomach flutter. Back then it was with excitement and awe, but now, now-
> 
>  
> 
> “It’s been a long time, huh?” Keith asks, and Lance blinks away the daze.
> 
>  
> 
> For one of them, at least. Keith sees this all the time. Lance can see the familiar recognition in the way Keith looks at space instead of into it, like he's greeting an old friend.
> 
>  
> 
> But Lance prefers the view from earth; the one he had to strain his neck to see. It's too close this way, too impending, like he's staring straight into the maw of the universe
> 
>  
> 
> “Yeah, it’s, uh, bigger than I remember.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I owe you all an apology. You've all been great and I hate that I kept you waiting so long. Like Lance in this story, I deal with anxiety too, but it's not an excuse. I just hope that this chapter was worth the wait and that I can do better in the future.

_"Wish I could go back_  
_To an unknown yesterday_  
_When I was all alone_  
_No one telling me to stay."_

 

Lance arches his back towards the ships paneling, trying to catch a reflection at an angle that doesn’t distort his proportions like a funhouse mirror. Because of course the one place he can change at in the cruiser is mirrorless and the size of a bathroom stall. Because of course when Keith was given the Galra equivalent to a company car, he chose a fighter jet instead of something more pragmatic, like the standard transport cruiser. You can take the speed demon out of the race, but you can’t take the race out of the speed demon. 

 

“We're not in Cuba anymore, ToTo,” Lance mutters to himself as he steps into the matching boots. Just like the suit, the lose fabric contracts until its fit to form. 

 

Even still, the suit doesn't feel quite right, skin pulling taunt against the leathery fabric. Lance allows himself one more panel check, but it doesn't help ease his discomfort. 

 

There's a knock on the wall that separates Lance from the cockpit, and then, “We’re entering open space now," Keith says, "I’ve set us to auto pilot."

 

“Be right out, captain.” 

 

Lance hears something that sounds vaguely like a groan followed by a muttered  _ don’t call me that. _

 

He chuckles, waits for Keith's steps to fade, and then tries to shake the tension from his arms. 

 

When that doesn't work, he gives his warped reflection a glare of jaw clenching resignation before turning to join Keith.

 

Lance burst through the ships walkway and into the cockpit, his arms spread out as if to push open an invisible curtain. He stops dead center and juts a hip out like he’s posing at the end of a runway.

 

“You know, purples not really my color, but I’m rocking the space philanthropist look.”

 

When Lance’s gaze catches Keith's, it shifts away. Before he can question why, Keith makes a swift turn to the control plane. He tinkers with something that Lance can’t see and clears his throat. “That’s not our goal here, Lance.”

 

“Looking good is never a _ goal,” _ Lance says. “It’s a curse.” 

 

Keith shifts in place. “Maybe for the people around you." 

 

Lance isn’t sure if that's an insult or a compliment, but it makes him smile either way. Teasing Keith is always a good distraction.

 

With that in mind, Lance moves towards the console and finds he doesn't need Keith as a distraction. There's a much much bigger one right in front of him. 

 

Open space.

 

It's been so long. It’s not that different from how he remembers it. Far off lights in a field of negative space. It still makes his breath grow thick and his stomach flutter. Back then it was with excitement and awe, but now,  _ now _ -

 

“It’s been a long time, huh?” Keith asks, and Lance blinks away the daze.

 

For one of them, at least. Keith sees this all the time. Lance can see the familiar recognition in the way Keith looks at space instead of into it, like he's greeting an old friend.

 

But Lance prefers the view from earth; the one he had to strain his neck to see. It's too close this way, too impending, like he's staring straight into the maw of the universe

 

“Yeah, it’s, uh, bigger than I remember.” 

 

It's unnerving how endless it looks from this perspective. It makes him want to lean forward in a desperate attempt to find the other side. Which Lance knows is ridiculous. He's gone to every so-called edge of the universe and none of them curl in. They just keep going. 

 

“Do you think it’s true what they say?" Lance asks."That it goes on forever?”

 

Lance recoils at the apprehension his voice. Its unfamiliar and fear laced. He remembers being a first year at the Garrison and learning about the stars. He remembers how it felt to hear that starlight has no end, and that, even the furthest speck, given a few billion years or so, will shine back on you eventually. He was hooked after that, and like a first crush, there was really no sense as to why and no need for reasons. He loved space innocently, unconditionally. He loved the idea of it, just because he could.

 

When that infatuation changed into dillustioment, and again into a distant respect, Lance didn't question it. Just like most first crushes, the stars and him weren't a good fit. ‘

 

But being terrified of them? That doesn't feel right. That doesn't feel like him.

 

“I guess there’s only one way to find out,” he says, turning to Lance. “We’ll have to see it for ourselves.”  

 

The way Keith looks at Lance, you'd think he was still looking out at space, all soft and certain and with a light in his eyes that has no end. Lance bets that light could reach the end of the universe, given enough time, and for some reason he doesn't understand, that scares Lance too.

 

"So first week of the big gig, huh? How are the new recruits treating you?" 

 

"They're good at what they do. More professional than I'm used to." Keith pauses, his nose wrinkling. "One of them called me Commander Kogane." 

 

Keith sneers, as if the thought of being addressed similarly to the superiors he use to rebel against is making him rethink this whole leadership thing. 

 

 "Looks like bad boy Keith really is turning in his leather gloves, huh?” Lance ask, sputtering with laughter. “Next thing you know you’ll be trading out your mullet for a military regulated undercut and answering only to sir.” 

 

"It's not funny! My whole unit does it now. Even Acxa," Keith snaps, looking overly distraught. That just makes Lance laugh harder. 

 

"That's great. Thats-" Lance takes a second to catch his breath. "Looks like good taste in women runs in the family." 

 

Keith tries to hold a scowl, but it turns into a reluctant huff. "I used to think it was just a you thing, but I guess all Alvarez's are bad influences." 

 

"Proudly." Lance grins and gives Keith a two finger salute. "Well that's a relief." 

 

"What do you mean?"

 

Lance shrugs. "Guess I wasn't sure how I'd fit in with a bunch of stick in the mud philanthropist." 

 

It's meant as a joke, but it comes out more truthful than intended. Keith must sense that too, by the way he flinches. Lance braces for one of his fiery rebuttals, the kind that says  _ I will physically fight you if you talk about yourself like that. _ What he gets is a lot more casual. 

 

“You were wrong earlier,” Keith says, toggling with a switch on the control panel. “Purple is your color.” 

 

“It’s my- Huh?”

 

“I just mean- you look nic-” Keith clears his throat. “It looks nice. It fits, so… you’ll fit.”

 

Keith’s not facing Lance, but he knows he's cringing. Lance can’t say he blames him.

 

There’s a moment of long, tense silence, and then-

 

“Keith, buddy, I mean this with all the love in my heart but that was the worst pep talk I’ve ever heard.”

 

Keith sighs. "Trust me,  _ I know _ ."

 

 "I see what you were trying to do, and I give you points for execution. The call back was a nice touch, but I’m not Thor. This isn’t a  _ the sword chooses you  _ sorta thing.”

 

“Lance.”

 

“Our uniforms auto-adjust to be form fitting. They choose everybody.” Lance pauses and laughs. “Get it? Every- _ body _ .”

 

“Are you really giving me constructive feedback on this ?” Keith snaps, spinning around to glare at Lance.

 

“Uh, yeah?" Lance blinks back at him "What sort of friend would I be if I let you go on thinking that weirdo pep talk was suitable for your subordinates? They’d lose all respect for you! They may even stop calling you Commander Kogane.”

 

The words skert to a stop like a traffic jam. Keith purses his lips and rubs his thumb and index finger together, telling Lance his teasing is getting under Keith’s skin in the wrong way. 

 

Before he can even think to apologize, Keith lifts his head and gazes at him with a tired smile, like charmed exasperation. 

 

"Of course you'll fit in. You're insufferably charming. It's contagious."

 

Now there's a Keith pep talk, succinct and teasing. Tender and cheek warming. “Keith.” Lance pauses, searching for the words. “That's-"

 

"Sort of like a cold you can't get rid of no matter how hard you try." 

 

Oh, and he almost forgot. Their always a little bit mean too. 

 

"And there's the Keith I know." 

 

They glare at each other, mean muggin like they use to when they were just newly turned paladins. It quickly dissolves into an unspoken test of will to see who can hold their face longer. Just as fast, it turns into frothing laughter, both uncaring about who lost or who won. 

 

There was something about being with Keith, laughing with Keith, walking towards the same place as Keith.    

ATTENTION! ENTERING PURIS’S ATMOSPHERE IN FIVE DIABOBASH. PREPARE FOR  LANDING PROTOCOL. 

 

The announcement and flashing purple light jerks Lance to attention with the subtlety of an alarm clock. 

 

The pair glance at each other and wordlessly move to their station. Keith sits in the pilot’s chair, taking over the ship's control. Lance stands behind him, gripping onto the headrest to stabilize himself.  

 

Landing has always been Lance's least favorite part of flying. The bumpy descent, the sudden change in altitude, It's all skill and no style, which is probably why Keith does it perfectly. Keith could probably - no, definitely, fly through a magnetic storm with one engine down and still find a way to land them safely, but as they prepare to enter Puris’s sticky red atmosphere, Lance doesn’t feel safe.

 

Instead, his gut feels pitted and bottomless. It’s like a pocket of deep space that keeps expanding. He only knows it's there because of the fear that rises from it.   

 

How fast does fear move? Faster than light? And If there's light down there, given enough time, will it shine back too? 

 

**xXx**

 

The first thing Lance notices about Puris is the stench. The sort of chemical rot that would usually signal a gas leak. The mask isn't necessary here, but Lance wonders if they would help block out the scent.

 

"Puris is dense with thermal vents," Keith explains when Lance pulls a face. 

 

Right, Lance read that in his intake information. As they walk through a wall of upheaved dust, Lance mentally notes the Puris features prevalent to his job.

 

Puris hadn’t been able to save much of their agriculture, but it was enough to start a small garden. All Lance has to do is help to expand it and make sure it doesn't die. It sounds easy in theory, but there were a lot of environmental factors to consider, like Puri’s desert climate and marginally higher levels of gravity and o2. Then there's the geothermal crystals and boiling seas of underground quintessence that the empire spent millina drilling for. How, if at all, will that play into Puris’s ecosystem? Lance’s mind swarms with questions about diseases, yearly climate change, irrigation, and how to optimize conditions for the needs of individual plants in a way that's sustainable. 

 

There's an innumerable amount of factors to consider, and just thinking about them all sends worry rippling through Lance, like the aftershocks of a far off supernova. 

 

Lance slows - just to compose himself. When he looks down, he sees a drawing that resembles chalk art, thick heavy-handed line drawings of purple masked people. Lance smiles fondly. It reminds him of something Nadia would have drawn when she was younger. He looks up to ask Keith about it but stops when he realizes their out of the dust clouds radius.

 

The blue skies and red desert grounds of Puris narrow into an arms race, sprinting across dips and basins until they meet, neck and neck, at the far off mountainous finish line. Lance considers making a reference to the Pevensie siblings finding Narnia, but thinks better of it when he sees Acxa approaching them with a stiff posture and hastened steps 

 

"Good. You're back,” She says with zero preambles. “There's an issue with construction." 

 

"What sort of issue?" 

 

"Aqad is demanding a larger crew. When she requested more hands on deck, Ezor said, and I quote,  _ you already have four, how many more could you need _ . Aqad wasn't happy about that."

 

"Of course she did.” Keith pinches the bridge of his nose. "Why didn't you contact me?" 

 

Acxa pulls a face that would look playful on anyone else. "I didn't want to  _ disturb _ you,” She says.

 

Keith’s eye’s narrow marginally and something silent and unknown to Lance is communicated between them. “I told you to contact me if there were any issues,” Keith finally says, and Acxa nods sharply.

 

"I made the call to handle the situation myself. It seemed to be of low priority," She explains. “I’ve gone through our most recent reports and found three units with members to spare. Give me the go-ahead, and I'll prepare them for transfer.” 

 

"Why not ask Coran?" 

 

Keith and Acxa turn to him, blinking, almost as if they had forgotten he was there. Lance tiptoes forward, feeling uncertain of himself.

 

"I mean, they're your allies, right? Earth too? I'm sure there are people who'd be willing to help." 

 

Keith glances over to Acxa, who’s staring daggers into Lance.

 

"The Blade of Marmora is an organization exclusive to half Galras,” She says, and yeah, Lance definitely overstepped.  

 

It doesn’t make sense though. Lance isn't half Galra, and neither are the rest of the specialists as far as he knows. He should probably drop it, but Lance has never been known for his self-preservation skills. 

 

"Right. My bad, I just thought, you know, you guys are like the Peace Corps, but in space. The more hands on deck the better." 

 

Acxa’s stares at him, unblinking, and then says, "You sound like Veronica."

 

"Veronica sounds like me, actually, but I'll take the compliment." 

 

"It wasn't one," she snaps, but then looks away, features marginally less guarded. "Usually it would be, but not in this case."

 

“We don't have time for this,” Keith says, which is Keith speak for  _ this conversation is making me uncomfortable _ . Lance takes the out. His first five minutes on Prius have been an embarrassing failure and he’s eager to see how he messes up the next five. 

 

“It looks like your tour guides here just on time.” 

 

Lance furrows his brow. “Wha-”

 

“Hi-ya.” 

 

An arm slings around Lance’s neck and he screeches away from it. He turns to the intruder with a hand over his chest to see Ezor looming above him with a bubblegum stretched grin.

 

“Why- did you- Where did you come from?!”

 

“Aw, come one baby blue, don’t tell me you forgot about me already?”

 

Lance take a moment to gather his breath and his dignity. His eyes narrow, and then-

 

“Invisibility." He groans. “How could I forget?”

 

“She’ll stop once you stop reacting to it,” Acxa says, sounding considerably less angry and more bored. Lance takes that as a win. 

 

“How did you know she was there?” Lance turns to Keith, who looks like he’s had this conversation five times before and would rather fall on his own knife than have it a sixth. 

 

Ezor pulls up beside Lance. “That's what I’ve been trying to figure out for years,” She says, leaning her weight against his shoulder. “My leading theory is that he’s got some freaky thermal vision no one knows about.” 

 

Keith rolls his eyes. “Not even close,” Keith says, before honing back in on Lance. “Take the night to get adjusted. Ezor will show you to our base camp and help you get your bearings before dinner. You’ll start fresh in the morning.”

 

Lance’s shoulders tense up and his mouth grapples to find something to say. A tour was reasonable, but he was restless to get started. Three months didn’t seem like enough time.  “You got it, Commander Kogane,” he finally lands on, leaving Keith with a practiced smile.

 

Ezor laughs, Keith groans, and from the corner of his eye, he thinks he sees Acxa smirk. Keith retreats towards their base camp with a grumbled goodbye. Acxa follows, but not before one more strained stare in Lances direction. The feeling in his stomach grows as he watches her go. 

 

“She’s terrified of you.” 

 

Lance shifts wide-eyed beneath Ezors arm, because-

 

"Acxa? Terrified of me? She's like a battle axe on legs!"

 

“True, but she's got heart eyes for your big sis, and it's no secret how Vee is about family. When she visited last year, you guys were all she talked about." Ezor chuckles. "I’ve never seen Acxa scared of anything, but she is scared that you'll hate her. It's pretty amazing and kinda sweet."

 

Which, brings up a lot of questions, but mostly-

 

"Yeah,  _ totally _ got that. The menacing scowls really made me feel welcomed."

 

"That's just how Acxa is. She has resting murder face."

 

"That's not- you know what? Not important," Lance says with a wave of the hand. "This was different. I mentioned bringing in allies as Blade members, and she almost bite my head off!" 

 

Ezor tenses before removing her arm from his shoulder. The distance she puts between them seems too big to be anything but intentional.

 

"That's… a touchy subject for her. But, you don't have to worry about that! She doesn't have any anything against the specialists, you guys being temporary and all."

 

Temporary. Right. This is all temporary. He’s grateful for the reminder.

 

 Don't get Lance wrong, he likes to be liked. Especially by the person his sister loves. But these aren't really his teammates, and being liked isn't the point. 

 

Somehow that doesn't make him feel any better. 

 

"Well you can tell Acxa she doesn't have anything to worry about. I'll like anyone Veronica dates, as long as they make her happy."

 

"I tried to tell her that but," Ezor rolls her eyes. "She doesn't listen. Keith was the same way when Veronica visited." 

 

"Huh? Why would Keith-"

 

"Anyway," Ezor says, seizing Lance’s wrist. “We don't have a lot of time and I have to Introduce you to literally everyone so I hope you walk fast." 

 

Lance doesn't have much of a choice, seeing as Ezor grabs his wrist and drags him alone. She moves so fast that Lance wonders if her power isn't invisibility but really teleportation. Keeping up with her doesn't leave a lot of time to wonder about her weird comment, which is probably for the best. Keith had said Ezor is a notorious trickerst and warned him against taking the things she says too seriously. 

 

So he doesn't. Instead, he focuses on not tripping as they head towards the base just barely visible in the distance.

 

**xXx**

 

It takes about five minutes before Lance sees it, a cluster of purplish crystals as tall as at least three of him jutting from the ground. They cross each other like a fortress of swords, too small to protect anything, but too glaring to not be the first things Lance notices this side of the horizon. As they grow closer, Lance realizes there are five of these clusters, a constellation of them with The Blade's base camped out in the center. Their mirror-like, reflecting the base’s image back at it, and in the high noon sun, it’s speared by violet refractions of light. 

 

“Woah.” 

 

“It’s pretty neat, huh?” Ezor stands with her hands on her hips and with her feet shoulder-width apart, like a superhero showing off the city they help to protect. Lance realizes she’s probably talking about the base and not what it’s built on. “Wait till you see how it runs.”

 

From the outside, it’s not that impressive. Just spaced out units that look like repurposed shipping containers, all dark and garish against the russet peaks of Puris.

 

But that’s Keith for you, all substance and no presentation. One of these days, Lance'll teach Keith the importance of branding and the difference a simple coat of paint can make.  

 

Ezor flashes him a grin and then their moving again. She talks almost as fast as she walks, filling the moments between pit stops and quick introductions with idle chatter, ranging from the sleeping habits of their bunk mates to gossip about intergalactic romance.

 

It’s a lot in a little bit of time, and Lance only keeps a few inconsequential flashes. Communal showers and a small dining hall. A group of sparing Blade members and a sleep-deprived lab technician. 

 

Then there are the more potent moments, ones that stick as close as his skin-tight suit. Puritans, with brown-yellow scales, cracked like desert soil, resting gaunt in a medical tent as their immune systems are pummeled by superviruses breed through a millennia of colonization. 

 

There's an ex-military field surgeon who's admiral's brow wavers under the imminence of a disease with no known cause or treatment, whose hands exist to cut, to put back together again, but can only clench in hopeful waiting. 

 

There are the healthy Puritans, splayed across each other in an uncarrying heap, threading claws through the tiny red-tipped spines of another's head or weaving together pieces of thatch into thick bundles. They talk, in peaceful chatter and coy whispers, in contagious bouts of chirping that's reminiscent of laughter. It reminds him of his mom shelling peas on the porch with him and his sister, complaining about mosquitos as Lance braids Rachel's hair. It's simple and normal but somehow so radical in the face of everything else around them.

 

There are relief tents, bare of personal items and long with rows of cots pushed together for communal sleeping. 

 

There's neat piles of rubble, put aside to be either reused or disposed at a later date. Besides that, clay bricks being left out to dry in the arid heat and the houses being built from them, 

 

There's two spirals standing sturdy among dozens of unfinished ones and the fidgety specialist in charge of them, whose restless to make more progress, but pleased to see the concept she and the Puritans came up with now tangible.

 

Through it all, the feelings stick. Hope and purpose. Community and dread, and a part of Lance want nothing more than to peel them off the way he'd peel off sweat-soaked clothes at the end of a workday.

 

It's more than Lance has been exposed to in a while, too much to reflect on. He feels as if he's being dragged through every moment rather than experiencing them, and it makes him wonder if days on Puris are longer or if something in him has grown shorter. 

 

"When you said you were going to introduce me to literally everyone, I didn't think you meant literally everyone." 

 

"Aw cheer up baby blue. It's only been four varga."

 

"That's all, huh?" Lance deadpans, and Ezor gives a shrugging smirk. She's either immune to his whining or finds sadistic humor in it. He's leaning towards the latter. “Wait. What about the garden? Were going to see that, right?"

 

"Trust in your tour guide, blue. I have a strict itinerary." She taps her temple twice. "It’s all up here."

 

Lance grimaces in uncertainty. Ezor seems like the type who's forgotten a lot of appointments in her life. Not air headed by any means, just scattered. 

 

There's nothing he can do about it now though, so he follows, and soon, their at the barracks, being greeted by groaning laughter. 

 

Standing in front of them is Zethrid, dust-covered and hounded by two Puritan children. 

 

It looks like their trying to take down Goliath. One clings to her neck and the other to her arm, but she shakes them off with ease. They fall back with shrill giggles before getting up and charging again. 

 

Zethrid stands tall and points at the two with a triumphant grin. “You’ll have to do better than that if you want to take me down, kiddos.” 

 

Besides Lance, Ezor's smirk and throws him a wink. Before he can realize what's about to happen, she's gone.

 

She reappears on Zethrid's back just as the two kids pounce. The whole brood of them tumbles to the ground. Zethrid lands with a thud and a groan and the kids are quick to scatter, leaving trails of laughter as they go. 

 

Ezor perches her chin atop two curled hands and grins down at the other woman with a unique blend of smarmy and innocence. “I win." 

 

“That doesn’t count! You cheated!” 

 

“Aw don’t be a grump just because I swept you off your heels.”

 

"The point of sweeping someone off their  _ feet  _ is that you catch them!"

 

"Sounds like something a loser would say." She says, then leans down to peck the furrow of Zethrid’s brow. Her frown melts into a relenting groan. She pats the back of Ezors head and mutters something Lance can’t hear.

 

Lance watches the affection with a smile. It's cheesy and gooey and makes the romantic in him stir. He can't help but try to imagine him and Allura like that, but the mental image doesn't fit as he wants it to. 

 

Before he can dwell, Lance shakes off the idea and walks to where the pair are now standing. 

 

Ezor sees him coming and waves him over. 

 

“You remember Lance, right Zetty?” 

 

Zethrid crosses her arms and glares at Lance like she’s either trying to place him or size him up for a fight. Lance is almost offended enough to hope it’s the second.

 

“Come on! Red Paladin of Voltron. Team sharpshooter and galactic lover boy!” Lance flings his arms wide open as if to say  _ don't you remember me. _ When Zethrid continues to stare, Lance throws his head back with a groan. “You kidnapped me once!” 

 

Zethrid’s eyes widen with recognition. “Oh yeah, you’re the mouthy one!” 

 

“Yep, thats- Hey, wait for a tic-”

 

Lance is cut off by a booming laugh and a sharp slap on the back that nearly sends him toppling over.

 

“Why didn’t you say so? You’re tried to protect the short one. That was really stupid of you. Bold.” She grips Lance’s shoulder and gives him a sharp tooth smile. “I like bold.” 

 

“Uh… Thanks? I think.” 

 

“He’s also the Lance that Keith disappears to see once a phoeb. Ya know,” Ezor pauses, adding air quotes to her next words, “ _ to pick up produce _ .” 

 

“You know that's not how air quotes work, right?”

 

 Zethrid ignores him and mimics Ezor. "That Lance, huh?" She says. " _ Keith's old teammate _ .” 

 

“Nope. That's still not right.” 

 

“Yep, just Keith's  _ friend and old teammate. Lance, the farmer _ .”

 

Lance's eyes darted between the two in utter confusion. He wasn't sure why, but he blamed Veronica for this.

 

“What’s even going on right now? I am a farmer! _ ”  _

 

“Sure you are, stringbean,” Zethrid grins. She then gestures to the metal box at her side. “Anyway, I came to drop my tools off. Where are you two headed?"

 

"I have to show Lance the garden before dinner." She takes Zethrid's hand in hers and presses thumbs into the open palm. "Walk with us?" 

 

Zethrid practically jumps at the invitation, slinging the toolbox over her shoulder and squeezing Ezor's hand with a "Be right back."

 

Lance is left slightly confused and nursing a sore shoulder. Only one of which he can shrug off.

 

“I'm pretty sure your girlfriend could kill a man with just a handshake.” 

 

Ezor watches Zethrid go with a dopey smile. “Yeah,” Ezor sighs. “She totally can.” 

 

“Okay Romeo, you can compare Juliet to starlight after we're done with-"

 

Beside him, Ezor's gauntlet vibrates.

 

"Opp- looks like we'll have to save the garden for later," She says, making a big show of twisting her wrist around. "Its dinner time." 

 

Lance blinks at Ezor for what's probably too long to be considered socially acceptable, but Lance doesn't care right now, because-

 

"But that's the whole point of me being here," Lance says. "I have to see it!" 

 

"It'll still be there tomorrow, stringbean," Zethrid says. Lance blinks at her too. He hadn't realized she was back. 

 

Once he gathers his thoughts, he goes to protest but tightens his jaw instead. What's he going to say? I know you're right, but my anxiety doesn't, so if you'll excuse me.

 

He's not sure why he's so stuck on seeing the garden tonight. Sure, he's two movements behind everyone else, but it's not like skipping dinner to fuss over soil consistency is going to help him catch up. 

 

It's just that seeing all the work being done on Puris makes him feel restless. Everyone's put so much of themselves into Puris, but Lance-

 

Lance-

 

_ Click _

 

Lance jerks from his thoughts. Inches from his face Ezor's fingers are poised to snap. She lowers her hand and leans in to peer at him up close.

 

"I thought I lost you there, blue." She pauses, looks him over one more time, and then leans away. "The pensive grump thing isn't a good look on you." 

 

Lance is almost impressed with how quick he swallows his spiraling thoughts. He even manages a smirk. "Really? What if I grew my hair into a mullet? Maybe dyed it black. Do you think I could pull it off then?"

 

Zethrid laughs and Ezor looks ready to say something, maybe to continue that line of teasing, but seems to think better of it. 

 

"So~" She singsongs. "You're okay then?" 

 

Not at all. That clenching in his gut wants to steer him away from the base like a birds instinct might steer them away from a coming storm. But he can't do that, and even if he could, he has a feeling this is a storm that would follow him anywhere he went.

 

So he says, "Me? Yeah, I'm great. Just a little space ship lagged. I should feel better after I eat." 

 

Ezor perks up at that. "Dinner will be soon. So we should probably start heading there now." 

 

Lance nods, mentally sitting on his panicked thoughts like an overflowing suitcase he's trying to zip shut.

 

Maybe he's right. He'll feel better after he eats.

 

**xXx**

 

In a clearing, beneath a bolderous overhang, Puritans and Blades are packed onto a dozen or so circular mats woven of colorful thatch. In the middle are cacti bowls filled with sliced fruits and vegetables. They passed from hand to hand, overheads and across arms in a jumble of movements that breaks all the rules of table etiquette his mama ever taught him. 

 

There's zero elbow room, but the Puritans don't seem to mind. They embrace it, reaching and leaning into each other's space. 

 

"You can eat with us, blue," Ezor says, pulling Lance's attention away from the crowd. 

 

"Thanks, but I think I'm going to look for Keith. I'll catch up with you guys later." 

 

Ezor and Zethrid turn to each other with matching smirks that Lance is too preoccupied searching for Keith to see. 

 

“I miss my girlfriend too after being apart all day.”   
  


Lance glances back. “Huh?" He says, half distracted. "I don’t miss Keith. I just saw him this morning.”

 

Ezor purses her lips, looking entirely unconvinced. “Sure,” she says, pointing to their left. 

 

Lance shifts and catches a glimpse of black hair. When he looks back, Ezor’s arm is looped through Zethrid's. She winks and says, "Have fun," before sauntering away into the crowd. 

 

All alone for the first time today, Lance takes a breath to recalibrate. He processes the scene from its fringes, watches the Puritans float from group to group. It makes him feel a little like a teenage protagonist on their first day at a new school, overwhelmed with nerves.

 

Younger Lance would have loved this. Being a cocky little shit came with the added benefit of being fearless in moments like these. He certainly wasn't the tentatively dip his toes in type. With a steadying breath, Lance takes a cue from his teenage self and jumps in headfirst.

 

He twist his way through the crowd and towards where he saw Keith. When he finds him, Lance feels himself smile. 

 

He slinks up behind him. “Got space for one more?”

 

Keith twists enough to squint up at Lance from over his shoulder. One of Puris’s two suns shines into his eyes, and he flinches away with a sneeze. When he recovers, it’s with a death glare in the sun’s directions. 

 

Lance bites down a smile. For a bon-a-fied space assassin turned philanthropist, Keith can be stupid adorable.

 

“I knew you were emo, but not  _ allergic to sunlight emo _ .” 

 

Keith’s glare turns to Lance. “Are you going to sit or are you going to make dumb jokes all night?”

 

“Some of us can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time, Keith.” 

 

He nudges Keith’s leg with his foot. Keith scoots to his left, and Lance mutters hasty apologies as he squeezes between him and a Puritan. He’s practically falling into Keith’s side until the circle adjusts to a new person, a position he’s all too ready to get out of. 

 

One of the Puritans, a few spots over from Keith, says, “I saw you earlier. Outside of the med bay.” 

 

Lance squints at the Puritans, trying and failing to place them. “Oh, uh, sorry. I’m not the best with faces.”

 

They wave him off. “Don’t worry. It was only in pacing.”

 

“This is Lance,” Keith says, with something that sounds like pride. “Our algaculture specialist.” 

 

The spines on the Puritans sharpens, and Lance, unsure why, braces for anger or disappointment. 

 

But it doesn’t come. They don’t recoil or grimace. Instead, they pick up a bowl and shove it towards Lance. 

 

“Wonderful. Taste this, will you?” 

 

“Uh-” Lance glances down at the greenish fruit and then back at the Puritan. “Why not?” he says, barely hesitating before he pops one in his mouth. 

 

“This is...Woah,” he says between bites, already reaching for another one. “What is this?”

 

“I’m not sure of its name, just that it’s one of the crops we grew before the empire.” 

 

Lance goes in for a third piece but makes a wounded sound when Keith swoops in and takes it for himself. He stares Keith down and Keith stares back, smirking while he chews, as if to say  _ whatcha going to do about it _ .

__

“That was the last piece!”

 

“I know.” He swallows. “It was really good.”

 

The Puritan makes a happy chirping sound that grabs Lance's attention. 

 

“I’m N’axe,” they say. “And I set up our garden. I was a little nervous about what you’d think. This fruit is the last of my first yield. All the Puritans liked it, but well, when you’ve been eating mush your whole life, pretty much anything tastes good.” 

 

Lance recognizes the hopeful insecurity. It's a search for validation he's familiar with and more than happy to oblige. 

 

“Really? That’s amazing N’axe. It takes most farmers seasons before they manage to grow anything edible.” 

 

“O-oh, well I only ended up with several stalks worth-”

 

“Don’t sell yourself short,” he says with a soft smile. “You’re a natural. In fact, I hereby deem you an official member of the Galactic Farmers Association.”

 

“That's not a thing,” Keith says, perusing different bowls of fruit. He pops a strawberry in his mouth, leaves and all, like the animal he is.

 

“Hush, Brutus, You probably eat orange peelings too." 

 

“Drama queen."

 

Lance is about to say something contradictory  because this is Keith and Lance just can't help himself around him, but then N’axe cuts him off. “It really is a tiny little project right now, but-” they look at him with bright eyes - “that’s why I’ve been looking forward to our meeting. There’s so much I’m ready to learn from you.” 

 

Lance forces the praise down like cough syrup, the awful cherry-flavored kind he had to pinch his nose just to stomach as a kid. He tries to recover with a friendly remark, but then Keith’s there with another spoon full.  

 

"Lance is great at what he does. If anyone can help Puris, it's him." 

 

He sounds so proud and so certain. So  _ expectant _ . 

 

"Where did you get the seeds from anyway?" Lance blurts as he fiddles with an empty bowl. "I thought all the vegetation was lost after the empire invaded."

 

"We hide them," N'axe says. "Or, our ancestors did. They'd sneak out and hide bits and pieces of our culture near the ridge that touches the skyline. Eventually, they were picked up by the Blade and secured."

 

"Wow… that's… "

 

"Inspiring?" N'axe grins. "I know." They tilt their head up towards the sky and close their eyes. When they open, their smile is gone. "People died doing that, but it was the only way to preserve what we had. Just getting caught speaking our language was enough to get you mutilated." 

 

Lance brought an open hand to his gut at the word mutilated. Beside him, Keith goes stiff. Neither of them asks for more detail. 

 

"N'axe, I'm so sorry." 

 

"Don't be," they say, shaking their head with a fresh smile. "The actions of our ancestors was just a tall tale, or at least that's what I thought until we were contacted by the Blade. Knowing what they risked, it makes me proud. It makes me want to be better." 

 

They gaze fondly at their fellow Puritans as they pass around bowls of food and ease through conversation. "That's what we're all trying to do,” they say. “Make the most of the universe others died for us to have. I'm sure you understand that, Paladin." 

 

The ache in his gut rises like bile. It fills Lances mouth, but he smiles around it. Did he understand that? He thought he did, thought that he was making the most of Alluras's sacrifice by staying on his farm, but if that's true, why does he feel so woefully out of place?

 

The rest of dinner drags out like Puritan dryland. It looks like it might go on forever, and just the thought of getting through it seems impossible.

 

The conversation moves forward, and Lance tries to as well, but he's stuck. 

 

Every sound is a clatter. 

 

Every smile a pin light.

 

Sensation wraps around him in a claustrophobic snare and all Lance wants to do is get to the other side.

 

“Bathroom,” he mutters, grateful that Keith's too preoccupied to notice him go.

 

He walks until he can no longer see the overhang and then walks some more like maybe he can satisfy whatever urge is telling him to run if he gets far enough away, but as one of Puris's suns disappears from the sky, it becomes obvious that's he's just been walking in circles. 

 

He stops. Inhales. It feels like the first full breath he's taken all day. The Puris air goes through him with a sting, like cold water on an empty stomach, sloshing around in the pit of his gut. Then he releases, and everything stops. There's no grating noises, no harsh light. Everything settles.

 

When he finally looks up, he's not far from where he began, just a few meters off from the Puritans temporary housing. He looks around, and off to the left, sees the garden he’s been trying to get to all day.

 

Lance stalks over like he’s confronting an enemy, but when he stops in front of the garden, he can’t figure out why he’s here. Not just in the moment, facing off against a garden of all god damn things, but here on Puris. 

 

It’s not that he’s forgotten why he made the decision to come here. That’s the rope he’s been holding on to since he made it, but at the end of that rope, beneath the worry and the dread and the fissures in his gut that he's been trying to ignore is one solid truth. He made a mistake. 

The garden really is a small thing. A half a dozen willful stalks growing despite the structural issues Lance immediately notes, as If filled with N'axe's same optimistic determination. Its a garden several millennia in the making. People had died for this. Died for the Puritan’s right to do something as ordinary and mundane as eating fruit, so of course, it grew, because who would waste a sacrifice like that?

 

It didn’t wilt beneath the bright light of its predecessors but thrived. Just like Keith and the Blades, like Pidge and Hunk and Shiro. They didn’t crumble beneath the expectation and sacrifices of the ones before them. They withstood. They stepped into a vat of heat and pressure and came out like diamonds, reflecting back onto everyone in their orbit. It’s in that light that Lance is blinded by his insincerity. 

 

He’s a fraud. He knew that from the start, but knowing something isn’t the same as facing it. It’s not the same as being surrounded by all these precious, polished people who expect him to withstand the same pressure, to come out of the vat glistening the same light. To come out of the vat at all. 

 

The Puritans and The Blades deserve better. Keith deserves better. They deserve someone who chose the position as much as they were chosen for it. Someone tenacious and skilled and who wouldn't turn to dust in all this light. But it's too late to change anything. Lance is committed to this mistake. You can’t back your way out of a corner. There’s only forward.

 

So he locks his knees and staggers his feet, shouldering the weight like he uses to shoulder his rifle. He might not have come out of the war a diamond, but maybe cubic zirconia will do for now.

 

Bereft of any direction, Lance regards the garden for a brief moment. Then, in hopes of doing something useful, he grabs one of its fruits, rolling it in his hands to inspect its firmness. It's a bit overripe, tender in certain places. He'll have to fix that, then multiply it by hundreds.

 

It makes him think of Allura, her hand pressed against a tree on Earth. How an ethereal blue light peaked between her fingertips like a rising sun, penetrating the barren and the rot. Petals stretched open. Stagnant air shifted. Tangles of sleep and stillness unfurled. Allura reached, and the universe reached back.

 

That was Allura. The pulse of the universe, a healer. Lance can still feel her magic, warm and thrumming. It builds in him, like a hum that starts deep in your throat. 

 

Lance tries to imagine what she would do in his situation, but he can't. No matter the situation, no matter what doubts it might feel, the sun will always keep burning. Allura was born to heal worlds while Lance was just born. 

 

He doesn't envy her talent. He just wishes that talent still existed, or that maybe he could live up to it. 

 

Lance's hand tenses around the fruit as Allura's absence hits him with renewed awareness. He feels tears build in his chest. 

 

"Some defender of the universe, huh? I'm a farmer whose scared of farming. I've had a lot of bad jokes, but I think that's the worst of all."

 

He pauses, listens, as is she might respond back. Of course, she doesn't. He knows she's all around him. He can feel her, and maybe he should be grateful for that, but what he wouldn't do to hear her too.

 

"Fuck, I- I miss you so much Allura. You were the best thing about me and I- I just- I don't know what you saw in me," he says, pushing past the vice grip of a held back sob. "But whatever it was, I could really use some of it right now."

 

Suddenly, his gut lurches, clenching around nothing, but it's not like any of the other nervous aches he's felt in the pit of his stomach. It's not an uneasy sway, but a breathtaking jerk. 

 

He's wrenched forward until there's just one shaky arm in between him and the ground. His gut trembles and a blistering sludge oozes from his cheekbones all the way down to his toes. Every muscle he has coils tight, so tight, poised to snap, and Lance would welcome that if it gets the pain to stop.

 

He feels that heat pushing through muscles and tendons and up against his skin, perforating until it's on the surface, eating through his nerve endings like fingertips to a hot plate.

 

 He shrieks and heaves and with one last burst- 

 

There's blue. Tendrils of blue magic lash from his hands like a solar flare, burning crisp white at the edges. Just like every other part of Allura, it's all Lance can see, and then it's gone too soon. 

 

Lance falls to the ground dumbstruck because it can't be, right? But he still feels it. There's little volts of energy tingling at his lips and lapping from his fingertips. 

 

But it can't be.

 

Then his marks start to thrum too, as if to say,  _ yes it can _ . 

 

Lance's eyes fall onto the garden. The stalks have doubled in size, their foliage and fruits now lush and dropping. He reaches out to touch it, but his arms are heavy and his head is weightless. It somehow doesn't matter though, because all that bile is gone, burned away in blue light. Allura's light. 

 

He lays there, burned through and with spots coloring his vision. He finds it in him to smile, feeling punchdrunk and significant.

 

All light penetrates darkness eventually, given enough time.

 

He manages one last coherent thought before they bleed into unconsciousness: _ I guess Allura was right, I do have greatness in me. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I decided to make a playlist for this story. Every chapter going forward will have a song connected to it. 
> 
> Ch1: Gracious by Ben Howard  
> Ch2: Outsider by Blanco White  
> Ch3: Walk Away by Slothrust 
> 
> Listen here: https://open.spotify.com/user/22xlm3ztfp3ifdxcqhzzscsgi/playlist/18iA4JsH6jr40kDg1iYZZh
> 
> Come yell at me on twitter @spunkynihilist


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